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Drumbeat: April 3, 2009
Posted by Leanan on April 3, 2009 - 9:55am
Topic: Miscellaneous
Mexico making progress on new oil contracts - cos
MEXICO CITY/LONDON (Reuters) - Mexico's state oil company Pemex is making good progress drafting contracts that could bring major international oil companies into the country as service providers, oil company officials said.Legislation enacted last year allows Pemex to offer incentive-based contracts that Mexican officials say should be sufficient to bring in foreign expertise to help reverse Mexico's sliding oil production.
...Oil executives and analysts say that, based on their contacts with Pemex executives, they expect the new contracts to stretch the law to its limits to create a workable framework that will allow Pemex to partner with the oil majors in costly, yet potentially lucrative, deepwater oil developments.
Massive Antarctic ice shelf set to break loose
ScienceDaily — The Wilkins Ice Shelf is at risk of partly breaking away from the Antarctic Peninsula as the ice bridge that connects it to Charcot and Latady Islands looks set to collapse. The beginning of what appears to be the demise of the ice bridge began this week when new rifts forming along its centre axis resulted in a large block of ice breaking away.
EU-Ukraine gas deal 'unfeasible': Gazprom
(MOSCOW) - An EU-Ukraine plan to modernise gas pipelines in the ex-Soviet republic was crafted with no input from chief supplier Russia and is "unfeasible," Gazprom head Alexei Miller said Friday, Interfax reported.Speaking at a meeting with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Miller said he had talks with counterparts from E.ON Ruhrgaz AG of Germany, ENI of Italy and Gaz de France and said they too took a dim view of the EU-Ukraine deal.
Netherlands to introduce car trade-in bonus
THE HAGUE (AFP) – The Netherlands will introduce a car trade-in bonus of possibly up to 1,750 euros by mid-2009 to help boost sales of new cars and the economy, as well as to cut pollution, the environment ministry said Friday."This decision was mainly taken to help the environment but also to stimulate the auto market," ministry spokesman Jaap Eikelboom told AFP, adding that agreement had been reached with the industry earlier in the day.
Saudi offers more fuel oil on refinery issues
SINGAPORE - Saudi Aramco has offered unusually high volumes of straight-run and cracked fuel oil in the past two months, due to an extended outage at its Ras Tanura refinery and upgrading tests at Rabigh, industry sources said on Friday.The state oil firm has offered an unprecedented eighth cargo of straight-run A960 fuel oil in the past month from Ras Tanura, as its hydrocracker, which has been down since early March, is not due to restart till at least mid-May, traders said.
Natural mechanism for medieval warming discovered
Europe basked in unusually warm weather in medieval times, but why has been open to debate. Now the natural climate mechanism that caused the mild spell seems to have been pinpointed.The finding is significant today because, according to Valerie Trouet at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow, and Landscape Research in Birmensdorf, the mechanism that caused the warm spell in Europe – and meant wine could be produced in England as it is now – cannot explain current warming. It means the medieval warm period was mainly a regional phenomenon caused by altered heat distribution rather than a global phenomenon.
The finding scuppers one of the favourite arguments of climate-change deniers.
Baker Hughes Rig Count Rises for First Time in 19 Weeks
(Bloomberg) -- The number of oil and natural gas rigs operating in the U.S. rose for the first time in 19 weeks, gaining 4 to 1,043 from last week, according to data published by Baker Hughes Inc.
Grim new reality confronts engineers
As he surveys the crowd before him, Nader Zarabi lets out a laugh. "Hundreds of engineers, as far as the eye can see," he says of the group dominated by mostly middle-aged men toting black briefcases, forming a line that wraps twice around the interior of the convention centre's main floor....Welcome to the sign of the times, Calgary style. Zarabi, along with what would become, over the course of the day, thousands of other recently laid-off white-collar professionals, found himself among the masses of the city's brain trust, dropping off his resume to a group of recruiters from Snamprogetti Canada, an engineering division of Milan-based SpA, one of the world's largest oil and gas contractors.
Nexen, Opti Canada may be targeted in oil sands deals
Nexen Inc. and Opti Canada Inc. may be among Canadian oil companies targeted for takeovers as a price collapse triggers a rush by larger producers to amass holdings in the biggest crude deposits outside Saudi Arabia.
Peak oil: discussion of its obtuse impact on our economy
To follow up on my article about the Pickens Plan, I went in search of more information about peak oil and found that the legislature in Colorado received a briefing by David Bowden on the obtuse impact peak oil will have on our economy. His briefing coincides with the points discussed in the Pickens Plan, so I wanted to provide this synopsis on peak oil discussed in Denver, Colorado on February 15, 2009.David Bowden is the Executive Director of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas – USA. He gave a presentation at the Alliance for Sustainable Colorado's 5th Annual Sustainable Business Legislative Briefing. He is a renewable energy advocate and discussed our 100% penetration of our need on oil and gas. The two words he stressed are the words “peak” and “oil”. At the briefing he shared the following statistics:
A chance for a cleaner world goes begging
Climate change and peak oil, she says, are far more dangerous than the global financial crisis, but did not generate anything like the emergency summit. Come the GFC, says Milne, and "world leaders drop everything and rush to meetings".Rather than fiddling around the edges we need "transformational policies" that "open up huge opportunities to create hundreds of thousands of new green jobs in areas like public transport and energy efficiency".
The general picture is clear enough. A combination of peak oil, climate change, and the bursting of the mother of all economic bubbles will result in a collapse of the global economy, perhaps of civilization itself. If we are still to avert the worst of a crisis that could eventuate in untold death, destruction, and tragedy, we need to restructure the world's energy systems and money systems immediately.This message (in one form or another) is issuing from scores of independent writers, environmental organizations, and economic analysts. Indeed, even before anyone had ever heard of a Credit Default Swap, going all the way back to the early 1970s if not earlier, similar warnings were periodically heard.
But forecasting global catastrophe can be a tricky business, because everyone wants to know just when it will happen. And there's the rub. As a card-carrying member of the Cassandra Club, I've found this a perennial briarpatch. There have been so many variables at play that about all one could say with absolute confidence is that industrial civilization will run out of rope "sometime in the first two or three decades of the 21st century." But most people consider that too vague, and institutional leaders have shown repeatedly that they are likely to respond only to definite warnings about fairly imminent catastrophe.
This puts an unfair onus on those in the business of waking the world up to the impending crunch. Jump the gun and you wind up sounding silly; make a conservative forecast for some bland-sounding disruption sometime in the distant future and you fail to motivate anyone to change course.
OPEC export forecast down nearly 1B bpd
LONDON (UPI) -- Crude exports from the OPEC cartel, save Angola and Ecuador, are expected to decline by nearly 1 million barrels per day in April compared with the month prior.Information from the British Oil Movement tanker tracking company shows exports from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries could fall to 22.15 million barrels per day in the four-week period ending April 18. That is a decline of 960,000 bpd compared with the previous four-week period, the Platts news service reports.
Too many cars, and they’re not on the road
WASHINGTON - The sea of new cars, 57,000 of them, stretches for acres along the Port of Baltimore. They are imports just in from foreign shores and exports waiting to ship out -- Chryslers and Subarus, Fords and Hyundais, Mercedeses and Kias. But the customers who once bought them by the millions have largely vanished, and so the cars continue to pile up, so many that some are now stored at nearby Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport.The backlog exists because many of the factors that contributed to the collapse of the housing bubble -- cheap credit, easy financing, excessive production, consumers buying more than they could afford -- undermined another large and vital American industry.
One in 10 Americans on food stamps
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- A record 32.2 million people -- one in every 10 Americans -- received food stamps at the latest count, the government said Thursday, a reflection of the recession now in its 16th month.
Ukraine can meet March gas payments
KIEV, Ukraine (UPI) -- Ukrainian energy company Naftogaz will meet its debt obligation to Russian gas giant Gazprom for March deliveries of natural gas, the Ukrainian premier said.Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko told reporters Naftogaz is a reliable partner in the energy sector following earlier concerns over the debt-ridden energy company, Interfax-Ukraine reports.
"Gas payments have been made on time and in full since Jan. 1 ... as will the payments for March," she said.
Putin: Russia should continue dialogue with Ukraine on gas
MOSCOW (Xinhua) -- Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia should continue dialogue with Ukraine on gas issue, calling the neighbor as its important partner."The dialogue must be supported," the Interfax news agency quoted Putin as saying at a meeting with Alexei Miller, CEO of Russia's state-run gas giant Gazprom.
Iran urges haste on Syrian gas deal
DAMASCUS, Syria (UPI) -- Deals to export Iranian gas to export markets in Syria for the next 25 years should move forward as quickly as possible, the Iranian oil minister said.Iranian Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari moved on an energy deal with his Syrian counterpart, Sufian Allaw, during a Damascus visit earlier this week.
"Iran will transfer gas to Greece and Italy through Iraq, Syria and the Mediterranean Sea," Nozari said.
Turkey wants extra Russian gas supplies from 2015 - Gazprom
NOVO-OGARYOVO (RIA Novosti) - Turkey has asked for additional natural gas supplies from Russia from 2015, including via the Blue Stream-2 pipeline, the CEO of Russia's state-controlled energy giant Gazprom said on Friday.The planned Blue Stream-2 pipeline, part of the existing Blue Stream system linking Russia to Turkey via the Black Sea, would extend the system to Israel. The throughput capacity of the project, being carried out by Gazprom and Italy's ENI, is planned at 8 billion cubic meters.
Mongolia emerges as energy powerhouse
WASHINGTON (UPI) -- Mention Mongolia to most people, and their minds conjure up hordes of bloodthirsty horsemen under Genghis Khan sweeping across Eurasia's vast grasslands, cutting a swathe of terror and destruction. In a world increasingly concerned with reliable sources of energy, however, Mongolia is rapidly becoming a major player, and an international race is on to secure access to one of its most valuable mineralogical deposits, uranium.
Nation's worst oil spill hits 20-year mark
ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- For Steve Smith, the 20-year anniversary of the nation's worst oil spill is like a reminder that he lost a loved one."It's like a death in the family," the 70-year-old fisherman said of the Exxon Valdez disaster. "With time it gets a little better, but the pain never really goes away. Until this generation passes on, I don't think it will ever really be over."
Three Mile Island — Thirty Years Later
What can we say today about Three Mile Island and its aftermath? I would say three things:1)The accident, if nothing else, proved that the consequences of a nuclear accident were not as serious as imagined.
2)The culture surrounding nuclear power, rather than the technology, led to the events.
3)The industry has learned its lesson and improved operating and safety procedures almost beyond recognition. Such an accident is not likely to happen again.
Firestorm over U.A.E.-U.S. nuclear deal?
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (UPI) -- In a move sure to stoke a diplomatic frenzy, the United Arab Emirates, with U.S. interests, may be the first Arab state with a civilian nuclear-energy program.U.S. President George W. Bush signed a treaty with the United Arab Emirates during his last week in office to give American companies the opportunity to enter into nuclear trade relations in the Emirates, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Mexico sees oil output slide continuing in 2010
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's finance ministry expects the country's crude oil exports to decline by 18 percent in 2010, implying that crude oil production will fall below 2.5 million bpd next year, according to a report delivered to Congress on Wednesday night.The finance ministry estimated oil exports would drop to 1.125 million bpd in 2010 from 1.370 million bpd forecast for this year.
With no major additions to domestic refining capacity forecast for 2010, the projection implies that crude oil production will fall by approximately 245,000 bpd in 2010 to levels not seen since the late 1980's.
Mexican oil exports are already under the 1.370 million bpd target forecast for 2009 by the finance ministry. Crude exports over the first two months of 2009 averaged 1.315 million bpd, according to state oil company Pemex.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The Obama administration has made it clear: In order to get the billions of dollars of federal money that Chrysler and General Motors need to survive, they'll need to build and sell more fuel efficient vehicles.But even with many changes already underway due to stricter fuel economy regulations and public pressure, drivers won't see new line-ups overnight, even if these companies get the funds they need.
OPEC Finally Accepts Low Prices, May Not Cut Production
OPEC officials Thursday finally accepted worsening economic conditions would keep oil prices low for now, toning down a previous call for higher prices and suggesting the organization may not cut production further as long as prices stayed steady. The statements, which show a conciliatory tone toward oil-consuming nations, came as forecasts for the global economy released this week were gloomier than expected.
Korean SK yet to cancel oil deal with Iraq's Kurds
ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - South Korea's SK Energy has not revoked its contract with Iraq's Kurdish region, which the Baghdad government says the firm must doif it is to be considered for oil exploration tenders.An oil official of Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region on Friday told Reuters SK had not cancelled a deal it had made with the Kurdish government. Baghdad says such deals are illegal and must be approved by the central government.
"There's no change or any development in this issue. The contract stands as it is," the Kurdish oil official, who declined to be named, said.
The grass is always greener: Saving the planet and creating jobs may be incompatible
In 2006, in a study prepared for a pro-coal lobbying group, Adam Rose and Dan Wei of Pennsylvania State University looked at how increasing the share of renewables in electricity generation at the expense of coal might affect employment. Displacing a third of generation from coal by 2015 would put 1.2m people out of work, they concluded, and displacing two-thirds would raise the figure to 2.7m. The job losses came chiefly as a result of higher energy prices.
Fusion Power Could Be the Answer
Sometimes, it felt like the Bush administration believed blood-letting could purge a man of all evil humors and the universe revolved around the sun. At least government policies supporting scientific research seemed to reflect as much — that we were still stuck in an era where dogma rather than science drove progress.So what a breath of fresh air it was to hear that the Obama administration was renewing funding for research on all stem cell lines, and that combating climate change would be a top priority. Obama even tapped Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, as his Secretary of Energy.
This is more than enough to convince me that the President understands that long-term solutions are required to ensure the United States has a safe, clean, and independent energy infrastructure. But if the Obama administration is truly committed to exploring a comprehensive set of options for ensuring that kind of energy future, fusion energy must be on that list.
Oil to be moved from huge tanks near volcano
(CNN) -- Officials will remove oil from two massive storage tanks near the base of erupting Mount Redoubt in Alaska, a spokesman said Friday.As the volcano continues to spew ash across Alaska's Cook Inlet, U.S. Coast Guard officials said they will begin to transfer oil from the Drift River facility to get to a "safe" level.
America's oil bust: Falling oil prices and frozen credit are slowing production and piling up equipment. Now some worry we're setting ourselves up for another price spike.
The collapse in oil prices from over $147 a barrel has caused many oil producers to pack up their rigs and stow their jacks. Some fear the drop in production activity will lead energy prices to spike once the economy recovers."We're not drilling right now," said Willard Cline, who has run the small Cline Oil Company since 1946. "The low price of oil is slowing it up."
..."Once oil dropped below $75 a barrel, the economics just don't make sense for the wells we have around here," said Shawn Keane, who now runs the company along with his brother. "Just about everyone we've talked to is in the same situation we are."
Oil rises above $53, extending rally
Oil prices rose above $53 a barrel Friday, extending a rally fueled by market optimism that crude demand may rebound if the U.S. economic downturn bottoms out soon. Investors remained cautious, however, ahead of a crucial U.S. jobs report later in the day.
Scumbags: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em
Again the Forbes piece is a must read. I take a couple of lessons away from it. One, regardless of the sound theory behind peak oil and the rapid global growth that we were experiencing oil should have never come even close to rising as fast as it did last summer. When oil was in its parabolic rise, many people believed that as the immortal Fred Sanford would say "Dis is da Big One" and that the world would never be the same. That oil would be so expensive that we all would have to grow our own food and walk to work. Ahhhhh not so fast. That might happen some day a hundred years from now, but not now.
Iraq presidency approves slashed budget
BAGHDAD (AFP) – Iraq's presidency has rubber-stamped a 58.9 billion-dollar budget for 2009, after billions were wiped off spending plans because of a sharp fall in oil prices, a government spokesman said on Friday.
China oil majors' gasoline stock fall 3 pct in Feb
BEIJING, April 3 (Reuters) - Gasoline inventories in China's two oil majors CNPC and Sinopec fell 2.7 percent at the end of February to 31.9 million barrels from a month earlier, a Xinhua newsletter reported on Friday.The two oil giants' diesel stocks dipped 0.2 percent in February to 53.7 billion barrels, the bi-weekly China Oil, Gas & Petrochemicals reported, citing data from CNPC.
It also said that China's crude inventories stood at 36.6 million tonnes at the end of February compared with 37.2 million tonnes at the end of January.
Petraeus Says Iran No Threat Now to Oil Traffic in Persian Gulf
(Bloomberg) -- Iran’s naval forces pose no current threat to oil shipments through the Persian Gulf, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East said today.“I don’t think we have any concerns about disruption to the navigation” in the Gulf, Army General David Petraeus said in an interview. “Certainly nothing from Iran.”
Saudi heavy crude seen down after 4 months
SINGAPORE - Saudi Arabia will likely put an end to four months of rising differentials for its heavy crudes and cut their official selling prices for May after the fuel oil crack weakened, traders said on Friday.Nine customers of Saudi crude and one trader had varied expectations of the size of the cuts, but all those polled by Reuters expected a fall in differentials for both Arab Medium and Arab Heavy crude, Saudi Arabia’s two heaviest grades.
“Since the fuel oil crack has not performed as well in March than in February, I guess Arab Medium could fall to Oman/Dubai minus $2.00 or below, and Arab Medium to flat or minus 20 cents,” a term buyer said.
Moody's downgrades Gazprom to Baa1, stable outlook
MOSCOW (RIA Novosti) - International rating agency Moody's on Friday downgraded the senior unsecured issuer and debt ratings of Russia's energy giant Gazprom from A3 to Baa1, with a stable outlook.Moody's said the rating reflects the agency's view that the economic drivers of the financial profiles of Gazprom and the Russian state are strongly correlated, meaning the state-controlled energy company could not have a higher rating than the state itself.
Gazprom Balks at $8 Billion Price for Russneft, Vedomosti Says
(Bloomberg) -- OAO Gazprom Neft suspended talks on buying OAO Russneft after billionaire Oleg Deripaska sought as much as $8 billion for the crude producer, Vedomosti said, citing two people familiar with the negotiations.The oil arm of Moscow-based OAO Gazprom doesn’t want to pay cash in addition to assuming Russneft’s debts of $5.6 billion, Vedomosti said. OAO Sberbank, Russneft’s biggest creditor, initiated the sales talks, the newspaper said.
Sinopec Yanshan Refinery Made Profit in First Quarter
(Bloomberg) -- China Petroleum & Chemical Corp.’s refinery in Yanshan in the capital city of Beijing posted a profit of 1.13 billion yuan ($165 million) in the first quarter of this year on falling crude costs.Gasoline production rose 9 percent to 561,000 metric tons, or 4 million barrels, and jet fuel output surged 43 percent to 225,000 tons during the period, parent China Petrochemical Corp. said in its company newsletter Sinopecnews. Ethylene output increased by 4,500 tons to 208,000 tons.
Technip Would Consider Nuclear, Wind Projects Amid Oil Slump
(Bloomberg) -- Technip SA, Europe’s second-largest oilfield-services provider, would consider taking on nuclear or renewable energy projects along with customers like Total SA and StatoilHydro ASA as oil companies broaden their investments.“We want to be in the energy space. Nuclear is going to be important,” Chief Executive Officer Thierry Pilenko said in an interview yesterday at a Paris oil conference.
Norway eyes oil fund revamp after woeful 2008
OSLO (Reuters) - Norway's Finance Ministry said on Friday it would review the active management of part of its $300 billion (203.16 billion pounds) wealth fund after Europe's largest equity investor lost 633 billion crowns (68.85 billion pounds) on its investments in 2008.
Norway oil fund to step up green investing - paper
OSLO (Reuters) - Norway aims to set aside billions of dollars on oil cash to invest in environmental technology or sustainable development projects in emerging markets, a daily newspaper reported.The finance ministry is scheduled to hold a news conference at 1000 GMT on management of the $300 billion Government Pension Fund -- Global, commonly known as the "oil fund", which invests Norway's oil wealth in foreign stocks and bonds.
Toyota, Honda, Nissan battle recession just like Detroit does
TORRANCE, Calif. — Though he's 5,400 miles from Tokyo, the chef at the Depot restaurant follows automotive economics in Asia as closely as he monitors the crispness of the Thai shrimp.That's because his lunch hangout is down the street from the U.S. headquarters of both Honda (HMC) and Toyota (TM) in this Los Angeles suburb. That puts the restaurant directly in the path of the tsunami-like effect of the recession on Asian automakers.
The eatery still attracts a respectable lunch crowd, but the heady days of parties are over for now.
Honda's new Insight hybrid taken for test drive
Watch out, Toyota Prius. Honda's new gasoline-electric hybrid car has aerodynamic styling like yours but carries a lower price, offers video game-like "scoring" for fuel-thrifty driving and is arguably a more fun ride.
AC Transit riders' claim of funding bias tossed
A federal magistrate has dismissed a suit by AC Transit riders who accused the Bay Area's transportation funding agency of racial discrimination by steering state and federal money to trains with a relatively higher proportion of affluent white riders and away from buses that carry more poor and nonwhite passengers.
MTA talks delayed by debate over payroll taxes, bridge tolls
ALBANY _ State lawmakers and Gov. David Paterson were far apart Wednesday on reaching an agreement to bail out the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and avoid massive fare increases and service cuts in the New York City area.
Slum cooker protects environment, helps poor
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya's huge and squalid slums don't have much of anything, except mountains of trash that fill rivers and muddy streets, breeding disease.Now Kenyan designers have built a cooker that uses the trash as fuel to feed the poor, provide hot water and destroy toxic waste, as well as curbing the destruction of woodlands.
Big China hydro plant can sell carbon credits-Xinhua
BEIJING (Reuters) - A hydropower plant on the upper reaches of China's Yellow River was this week approved by the United Nations to sell carbon credits, making it the biggest hydro project to do so, Xinhua reported on Friday.
US Congress passes 3.5-trillion-dollar budget plan
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US Senate and House of Representatives passed separate versions of a massive budget Thursday signaling broad support for President Barack Obama's climate change and healthcare overhaul ambitions.
Dem Climate Change Legislation Could Trigger Global Trade War
Major cap and trade climate legislation unveiled this week might be better described as a cap on trade.The House measure includes potentially far-reaching measures to subsidize domestic industry and impose tariffs on foreign goods.
Climate-Change Policies Risk Protectionism, China, India Say
(Bloomberg) -- Global-warming policies being considered by the U.S. and Japan risk provoking trade barriers, Chinese and Indian officials said in interviews.Protectionism, rejected yesterday by world leaders meeting in London, has been discussed in the U.S. Congress and in France as a response to the competitive advantage of developing nations like China that refuse to regulate greenhouse gases. Potential import fees could prompt trade retaliation, said Su Wei, China’s lead negotiator for a new global climate-protection treaty.
Small islands fear rising seas
Bonn, Germany - Small island states have sharpened their calls for the rich to make deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, saying low-lying atolls risk being washed off the map by rising ocean levels.
Arctic may be ice-free in 30 years: study
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Some 80 percent of Arctic ice may disappear in 30 years, not 90 as scientists had previously estimated, according to a new study on the impact of global warming.
Polar ice gone in 30 years? Don't blame AGW. According to NOAA, not all climate change is anthopogenic, particularly ice-pack changes:
http://downloads.climatescience.gov/sap/sap1-3/sap1-3-final-all.pdf
This report is consistent with my questioning on this forum a few weeks ago. Yes, the climate is warming. Yes, human activities contribute to this warming. But how much of the warming is human?
According to this study about half of the temperature, none of the precipitation changes, and little of the ice changes are due to human activity.
Balanced discourse anyone?
Latest NASA report says that solar sunspots are at a very low level... visible light and UV emissions are the lowest ever recorded.....
So what accounts for for the other half of the GW?.. or is the less than half that we contribute enough to push things past the tipping point?
Bees are still collapsing. Bats are dying by the thousands in
New England.
Over one trillion bbls of oil have been converted into CO2
in the atmosphere.
While Monsanto ramps up glyphosate production in Louisiana
and Iowa.
"
Irrigators selling water to cities
24 Mar 2009
Cities and governments are buying up water entitlements from irrigators leading to concerns that some communities could lose jobs *or* eventually disappear if their water rights are completely sold off. Adelaide, Canberra, Bendigo and Ballarat have all bought water rights from irrigators in the last year as their own reserves have dwindled. Australia''s biggest irrigation corporation, Murray Irrigation, is trying to sell 42,000 megalitres for around $70 million. Murrumbidgee Irrigation sold 42,000 megalitres this year but says it will not sell any more water rights."
The Australian Financial Review, 24/03/2009
With that water coming from the now dead Murray Darling
River System.
Famine stalks the world.
"Water wars leave northern Colo. farmers dry"
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30006832/
The Great Plains should be made into a National
Park.
Harvesting of Bison Bones was the peak population
of the Great Plains.
And you can bet Fargo will be losing population
this Summer.
Noted with thanks. I'm not too well informed on the local situations on the ground on your side of the pond, other than through a few sites like this one and what the MSM finds worthwile to report.
Cheers.
Before you accept the great plains as a park I recommend a little time reading this.
http://www.iisd.org/agri/
Read it.
The only thing more important to man than trees is grass.
The 6th Great Die-Off
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/animal-extinction--the-greatest...
Animal Extinction - the greatest threat to mankind
By the end of the century half of all species will be extinct. Does that matter?
In the final stages of dehydration the body shrinks, robbing youth from the young as the skin puckers, eyes recede into orbits, and the tongue swells and cracks. Brain cells shrivel and muscles seize. The kidneys shut down. Blood volume drops, triggering hypovolemic shock, with its attendant respiratory and cardiac failures. These combined assaults disrupt the chemical and electrical pathways of the body until all systems cascade toward death.
Related articles
* Now relentless loss of habitat threatens first primate extinction for a century
Such is also the path of a dying species.
Humans eat oil.
#
#
Eating Fossil Fuels
October 3 , 2003, 1200 PDT, (FTW) -- Human beings (like all other animals) draw their energy from the food they eat. Until the last century, all of the food ...
www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html - 92k - Cached - Similar pages -
#
The Oil We Eat - Richard Manning
Dec 11, 2007 ... Special as we humans are, we get no exemptions from the rules. All animals eat plants or eat animals that eat plants. ...
www.wesjones.com/oilweeat.htm
mcg, have you ever even been to North Dakota? (you mention Fargo)
I can't speak for the other states that make up the Great Plains,
but I can speak of North Dakota.
I was born in Bismarck, grew up there, and am now back in ND after 12 years in the sf/bay area. (tiburon and petaluma).
North Dakota winters may not be pleasant, and this more than anything keeps the population low. However, Fargo has been one of the fastest growing cities in the U.S. this entire past decade. It is NOT going to lose population this summer. North Dakota is one of the top energy AND food producing regions on the planet. before this fall, ND was approaching a TWO BILLION dollar surplus, while almost every other state had massive deficits. This surplus is lower due to the fall in oil and gas prices, but is still massive, and will likely pick up again in the coming years, as will commodity prices. Do I even have to mention wind? There are crazy projects going up all over the place. Even though it is cold in winter, it is clear skies, 300 days out of the year. How long before those massive wind turbines have thin coat solar ink-jetted onto them? (or whatever the hell it is)
If anything, post-peak, North Dakota will not be a bad place to be. The population is heavily armed and the social networks are tight.(but friendly) There is virtually no crime. The only real danger is if there is a nuke war between Russia and the U.S. (probably not very likely) ND is ground zero. (third largest nuclear force after the u.s. itself and the former soviet union). But hey, if it comes to that, wouldn't you rather be vaporized anyway?
There's not a chance in hell ND will be made into a National Park.
Our U.S. Senators have immense clout in Washington, being chairs of key committees. In fact, ND will be preserved as other places may be left to die. (the sunbelt anyone?)
I recommend to anyone to come and visit Bismarck, it's a beautiful place. But only come in the summer. ;)
you probably can't hack the winter.
-g
"There is virtually no crime."
unless you include the crime of flaring gas.
ND is a surprisingly expensive place to live.
This article brings to mind the difference between planned slow collapse/transformation, and the crisis/emergency situation we will face instead. As long as we don't accept that the world is changing, we cling to old ways of doing things, such as historical water rights.
There is no movement to re-examine the way things have "always" been done. I wish someone would make a comprehensive assessment of what "should" be grown given that the water is not coming back. Kind of like an old fashioned domestic budget. Imagine if I said - we've had a long history of spending 50% of our budget on entertainment (as teenagers, for example), so it's just too bad that a medical expense has come up.
If we could see reality clearly, the senior water rights holders themselves might be pushing for change - it is not in anyone's interest to have the whole economy collapse. Or is it? We could dry land farm and raise the price of corn. Households would spend more on corn by saving on beef. Farmers would sell wheat locally, instead of giving it away in the commodities market, where it gets turned into high price processed nonsense. There is a way to make this work, at least in the short run, but we are not looking even at that.
Meanwhile, the farmers who are losing their ability to farm are turning to other pursuits - they have bought into the system, farming wasn't that much fun anyway, and more money can be made from real estate. Oy vey...
Why don't you post these questions over at realclimate.org to some actual climate scientists?
According to Al Beado, once we have consumed half of the arctic ice, natural processes take over and nothing that happens from that point on is our fault.
Wait, what?
sure, good old Al. Didn't he used to have an office up on third floor, just across from Pete Moss, right down the hall from the Flask brothers, Earl and Meyer?
I think you're confusing them with the Wit brothers, Half and Nit :-)
Polar ice gone in 30 years?
Try 5.
All Climate Metrics are being exceeded
Unless we have total collapse now, a 4 C degree rise
by 2075 is baked in.
Balanced discourse anyone?
You mean between the folks who think Jesus rode a dinosaur
and this?:
In this post, I will examine the key impacts we face by 2100 if we stay anywhere near our current emissions path. I will focus primarily on:
* Staggeringly high temperature rise, especially over land — some 15°F over much of the United States
* Sea level rise of 5 feet, rising some 6 to 12 inches (or more) each decade thereafter
* Widespread desertification — as much as one-third of the land
* Massive species loss on land and sea — 50% or more of all life
* Unexpected impacts — the fearsome “unknown unknowns”
* More severe hurricanes — especially in the Gulf
Equally tragic, as a 2009 NOAA-led study found, these impacts be “largely irreversible for 1000 years.”
The single biggest failure of messaging by climate scientists (until very recently) has been the failure to explain to the public, opinion makers, and the media that business-as-usual warming results in impacts that are beyond catastrophic. For these impacts, terms like “global warming” and “climate change” are essentially euphemisms. That is why I prefer the term “Hell and High Water.”
http://climateprogress.org/2009/03/22/an-introduction-to-global-warming-...
This isn't a Depression, it's Epochal Change.
We are now in the Anthropocene.
I thought we were now entering the Oshitocene.
Same difference-;}
It's the descent that's a bitch
God will save us, my friend. /sarcasm
"High-Ho, Saurian! They'll only be takin' these Raptor Reins OUT OF MY COLD, DEAD HANDS!"
Charlton Heston, in "Warrior Prophet- Taming the Serpent", MGM 1946 (Peter Lorre was great as Pilate!)
Either we are going to have to stop with the caricatures of Jesus on a dinosaur or I am going back to my days of extreme sarcasm and start posting images of ObmanaMan on a white mule or worse.
Enough is enough already.
Others have been flamed by Leanan for far less. I think its time you spread this nonsense a bit more liberally on those who at this very time are assisting us in the economical SHittingTF and less bashing like the above.
I do my share of speaking out against the 'fundies' but its because they have stepped way over the line of the truths of Christianity. This is against people and NOT their supposed object of worship.I will respect their forms of worship even if it deviates from my own.
Will you do the same?
Your are tarnishing your image IMO with rather shabby imagery.
How many times have you posted this already? Some where above a dozen I suspect. Do you not think its getting rather treadbare then?
What price is a senseless 'giggle' worth in your book of exalted righteousness?
Airdale-to moderator..can we have a bit more fairness in your moderation of stupidity and the images? I can think of many that I could post that I daresay would not see the light of day yet would not be as stupefyingly ignorant. I believe there are actual Christians here after all. Is this the way we learn here to deal with the possibly ugly future that awaits us?
Agreed. It's getting a little threadbare. It was funny once, maybe twice, but no need to post it a million times.
Gecko - I am asking you to post fewer images, period. If it's a genuinely useful image, such as graph, map, or news photo, fine. But don't post images just to try to get people to look at your posts. It doesn't work, anyway. The last thing people want to see online is more visual clutter. They're so used to screening out ads they tend to ignore images anyway, unless they are closely related to the text and actually useful. A comment about Obama doesn't need a generic portrait of him to go with it. We all know what he looks like at this point.
Remember that many people are still on dialup...and that that percentage is likely to increase as the economy sours.
Also, the more servers that are "called" when a page loads, the slower it is. So posting hot links to images from all over the web can really slow things down, even if the images are very small.
Yeah, I know. I'm spoiled with a broadband- page comes in in <2 sec- and I assume others are fast too. I will be more careful about images.
I work in Info Tech... I know that the HTML plus each image are ALL server requests... But point made.
Gecko pulling images from multiple sites is much slower then a single server since its a new DNS lookup and new socket. With a single server you can reuse the connection.
Thats what Leanan was saying.
"But don't post images just to try to get people to look at your posts. It doesn't work, anyway. The last thing people want to see online is more visual clutter. They're so used to screening out ads they tend to ignore images anyway, unless they are closely related to the text and actually useful."
I did not realize this. Images, in the form of charts or diagrams or equations, tend to draw me in to a discussion. It tells me that someone actually cares enough to to spend some time pictorially constructing an argument. It's pretty easy to tell if something is borrowed though. And plus, don't ad images usually run around the borders?
It could be the case that many people are reading this via some text feed, in which case they miss lots of good charts.
Speaking of Obama:
Read this and weep; the country re- elected George Bush!
This is from Juan Cole: http://www.juancole.com
This is from the Washington Post:
All that is missing is the signing statements. Taken with the Geithner run on the Treasury and the AIG ripoff as well as new bonuses for the GSE brass it is clear that the business in Washington is as corrupt now as it was under Bush. I'm not exercised about any of this because as far as I am concerned there is no difference between Obama and Bush. They are both incompetent and have no idea how to govern.
They do know how to steal.
anyone with a memory longer than .....oh lessee.......april 4 minus january 20 is 74 days..... will recognise this as nothing more than revisionist propaganda.
Graphics that are related to the text, such as charts and graphs, are useful and welcome. Gecko has been posting "illustrative" images, though. A huge photo of Putin when commenting about Russia, a stock photo of people watching TV when talking about television. That's the kind of image-linking I want to discourage.
I'm on dialup and, yes, pages are slow to load. Worse, they cause Firefox to hang, especially when reading them offline, to such an extent I've gone back to Internet Explorer.
It's may be because of scripts on the page (I've got error messages saying a script is causing problems), or, more likely, because the pages are so big, 600 kB plus sometimes, with so much html.
On the latter point, TOD must have the worst html-to-content ratio of anything outside a porn site.
You need a Comment Reference button, and a Reply To Post button, but all the other buttons -- Parent, Subthread, Reply in New Window, New Thread, Top -- does anyone use them? I don't.
Maybe you should consider leaving them out.
(Sorry if this is an inapproprate place to raise the issue. I did write to Tech Support about the scripts, but received no acknowledgement or reply.)
What version of firefox are you using? With the newer 3.0 release those script errors have gone away. Apparently they changed java script engines between releases and it makes a big difference.
Chrome is supposedly the fastest with java script as well. You might give that a try.
I use them, often. Well, many of them. "Parent" is necessary to find the post a comment is in reply to, which can be quite difficult if there many nested subthreads. "Subthread" is for when you want to refer people to a particular discussion, without forcing them to scroll down and search for it.
I do wish we could go back to text links, rather than those dopey little icons. They all look alike, and it's hard to remember which does which. I always have to hover over them to get the little popup hint.
And if you use Firefox, why not disable scripting with the NoScript extension? The site works pretty much the same. The only things I've found that don't work are collapsing threads and the search function (which will switch you over to Google if you have scripting blocked).
Alright. 'pologies.
There is a group of fundamental X-tains that beleive some of the damndest stuff... Things like the creationism theory, flat world theory, the rapture, and that everything will be put back together again by God if we mess it up. And these are articles of faith, but not articles of fact.
It is difficult to convey to someone who beleives in the theories I list above that the world has a heap of problems, beginning with Peak Oil and going right on through to long term environmental and financial degradation. Their response is that everything will be OK because God will fix it all.
I had this discussion last night with a friend... Yes Jesus did live. Yes, he probably was crucified. But, I have no doubt that the truth about him has been twisted and recreated many times over the last 2,000 years or so. The fact that this picture appears in the 'Beginner's Bible Coloring Book' shows how messed up *some* Christian individuals are (not necessarily you).
Jesus once said ..."I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." (Matthew 19:23-24) Now, that's the Christ that beleives in living a simple life which means lower consumption. This is the advice that is desperately needed to be followed today- we must consume less, without a doubt.
See, I'm not anti-Christian at all. I'm just anti-fundamentalist, which is a shade different.
Apologies again.
Well,this wasn't an image you photoshopped but something generated by the fundamentalists. Maybe it was posted too many times but this fundie view of the world is one of the reasons why so little progress was made on science based issues like global warming and stem cell research during the W administration. This irrational, bible based view of the world is dangerous, whether you're talking about peak oil or global warming.
As far as you not being anti Christian, good for you, but even if you were, that is your right, and within a reasonable context, no one should be censored in any way because of their agnostic or atheistic proclivities. There will be Christians that are probably offended by images that you have posted but that is the way the cookie crumbles.
I second this observation. Not that I encourage the posting of X-tian nonsense ironically, but the photo is NOT a satire. It's from a biblical coloring book.
Airdale, methinks thou dost protest too much. Your line about "the truths of Christianity" is laughable. These truths are as agreed upon as who sucks worse, Yankees or Red Sox.
Gecko, I admire your tactful responses to the abuses administered above.
I think the only way to settle this is jump on Mohammed's Flying Horse and ask my ultimate authority on Bronze Age and Iron Age Fiction, the Talking Snake.
Hi there Airdale:
I for one have missed your realistic comments of living on the farm. How have you been since the ice storm? Last I heard was you were able to get around and most of your neighbors had electricity. Any more survival tips?
Lynford,
The ice storm passed into the record books but there are still crews out cleaning up the wreckage and this is a month and a half since it ended. A full month for me to get power back and as late as two weeks ago some were still without. Yet for all purposes all now have power.
The crews are now apparently cutting everything with a vengeance since I believe they are getting paid via FEMA. So they haul around half empty trucks, cut everything even slightly questionable.
The residents in town are getting enormous utility bills. Like over $500 for one month and a month when most had no utilities.
So someone is making out on the diaster. Our trees did not make out so well. Looks like a landscape from hell. Depending on the tree varieties the damage was unsurvivable to survivable but for the wildlife it is going to be very very difficult to survive with an almoset total nut and mast loss.
The effects will live with me until I pass on. A once in a lifetime event. My yard and surrounding areas are still full of downed limbs and debris. I will be a long time getting it cleared but every single limb and tree will go into my woodpile to heat and cook with.
The useful wood that would have made good firewood has been hauled off and apparently sold to others who chip it up or make something out of it. My whole road frontage is nothing but 1 foot stumps. You can not walk thru the woodlands except with great difficulty.
Survival. This now becomes to me far more familiar since I have seen what nature unleashed can do. I have lived through tornados here and many earthquakes and very bad winters and lots of flooding yet this is the worse.
In the past flooding brought cemetery caskets floating down the Mississippi. This killed people.
Survival for me is now something very personal. Something I have seen the face of full on. What comes now is hard to tell. How much more timber will die off? What will happen to wildlife? My peach tree is just stubs. Not a single leaf. One pear tree is the same.
When the top breaks out of a large tree usuallly what happens is it becomes very weakened and puts out weak limbs.
Survival? Start now. Don't believe the MSM. Do what has to be done or live like there is no tomorrow because there just might not be.
The sounds of timber falling like cannon fire for two days and two nights was surreal. Cutting trees out of the road for hours on end to get to the highway. A nightmare. Driving over many many downed power lines and not knowing their status. Helping a man and woman who almost rolled down an embankment and got stranded sideways while I was cutting a big oak out of the state highway.
Like I said. One for the history books. Parts of Arkansas ,Missouri and Illinois also got hit hard but they were not declared National Disaster Areas AFAIK as we were, or so I was told and they did call out the National Guard Kiddies. Who did zip-nothing.
Airdale
I don't know how many people I heard complain that they had to throw out all the stuff in their refrigerator. I saw one person at a local store buying ice. It was below freezing for the first nine days of the outage with snow and a couple of inches of ice on the ground. Kind of disappointing that people didn't realize that you can freeze water in plastic jugs and keep your fridge cool with it or pack a crisper full of snow.
I have a couple.
Heat. Freestanding woodstove that doesn't need a fan, at least some type of heat source that doesn't depend on electricity. There's EPA certified stoves that meet that criteria with decent efficiency. A flat top that you cook or heat water on. Lots of folks with fireplace inserts that have an electric blower melted the insulation off the wiring and still didn't get much heat. There were 33 deaths attributed to the storm, most from carbon monoxide while using a questionable means to keep warm. Many more non-fatal carbon monoxide poisonings. It was cold enough for the cold itself to be life threatening (worst night was two below) to the very young, very old or the infirm. Folks heating with kerosene seemed to develop a hacking cough after a few days, they and their house smelled like kerosene. If you're going to use kerosene for emergency heat take the time to find a unit that burns clean.
Light. Some oil lamps, like the ancient clay lamps that burned olive oil. Stores quickly emptied of candles, lamp oil, kerosene, coleman fuel, propane and batteries. It was in the middle of winter and daylight hours were short. The ancient style oil lamps will work with most vegetable oils which you could still buy. A rolled up piece of napkin makes a passable wick. The wicks do need a lot of trimming. Maybe better to have something like a Petromax or a BriteLyt lantern and keep kerosene on hand, but I think it will still be a good idea to keep a clay olive oil lamp around -- you can get it going with kitchen items. Candles don't seem to burn well if they have some age on them, maybe if you buy them shrinkwrapped and don't unwrap them until used they will be ok. Of course you will need a lighter or matches. Keeping some LED lamps around is probably not a bad idea. Solar battery charger may be good, in this instance it was cloudy for most of the outage.
Radio. A crank radio, crystal radio, or something that will last a really long time on a set of batteries. Having weatherband would be nice. Lots of roads were closed and dangerous due to all the downed power lines and debris. Radio keeps you appraised of whats going on elsewhere in the locality and if its possible to get into town, and something to enjoy when there isn't something you have to do.
Root cellar. With food in it. This has moved up several slots on my wish list.
Water. Lack of power hit the municipalities, some locales had a hard time coming up with enough emergency power to pump the amount of water they needed to pump. There were boil water advisories, without some alternate means to boil it you were stuck unless you had some stashed.
Candels age? The few candels I have seen used used after being forgotten in the bottom of a drawer for 20-30 years seemed to work as well as new ones.
Sitting out in varying temperature and humidity level exposed to light and air borne microbes does seem to affect them. They seem to develop a hard outer layer. I had one that made a tube as it burned down.
The oil drum does not revolve around you.
I thought it was pretty darn funny.... and pretty darn topical.
And I thought it was in very poor taste.
In an Islamic country someone's head might have rolled for such.
And BTW I don't see this kinda stuff being let go against other religions.
And not typical in the least unless your a Lenny Bruce stand-in.
Even Leno doesn't stoop to such depths.
Enough said. I will respond to it no more. But I will send an email to the staff if it happens again.
The OIL DRUM does not revolve around me. It doesn't you either. We know what it revolves around and its not hate. Or extreme derision. Funny or not.
Airdale-let it rest
I've looked through this report and find little evidence to support your summary of it. I'd suggest quoting a few relevant sections of this document that support your point.
"I've looked through this report and find little evidence to support your summary of it."
Karl Rove would say the same.
While the mammals (bats) keep dying). The bees keep collapsing
and pollination becomes harder.
Like we don't know what's causing cancer (don't look at those
studies of pot and brain cancer!!), but we know it isn't this.
But you're religious, huh?
If not , you'ld be about the first who was agnostic but
didn't think humans had altered the planet for the worse.
He's not responding to you. He's responding to Shunyata. Use the little icon
to find the post being replied to if you can't figure it out.
And please lay off the ad homs. Especially when you're flaming the wrong person.
"He's not responding to you. He's responding to Shunyata. Use the little icon to find the post being replied to if you can't figure it out.
And please lay off the ad homs. Especially when you're flaming the wrong person."
Noted. Just a little touchy. Because someone up there was
responding And I'll never start the ad homs,
but I will reply instantly.
Thanx,
James
8D
BTW-And of course full apologies to [-] Caelius Spinator on April 3, 2009 - 10:30am
Please don't. Our guidelines may be found here. Note #4: "If you see disrespectful behavior, report it to the staff rather than further inflaming the situation."
"If you see disrespectful behavior, report it to the staff rather than further inflaming the situation."
Yes, Leanan.
8D
I will not inflame the situation further.
Respectfully yours,
James
I just noted some disrespectful behaviour up above.
Perhaps I should have reported it to the Staff but they seem to be already overworked and busy. Too busy to even visit the DBs I understand.
Why then do you allow it to continue if you see such here?
I don't think I further inflamed the situation by making my remarks on the board. Does not peer pressure count? Or is that part that is biased matter?
In a few weeks ago there was very extensive ugliness occurring on the DBs and other Key posts. In fact this is one of the times I have posted on the DBs since they were fast becoming too rude even for my tastes and I can be a very rude poster on occasion but I have reined in my posting since it became self-defeating and a nonwin situation at that.
We are faced with an imminent crisis on this earth. Humor is important. Name calling and extensive rudeness should not be tolerated so I ceased.
Airdale
Give us a little time, okay? Nobody's full-time here. The response is not going to be instant.
And use e-mail instead of complaining in the thread. Complaining in the thread tends to escalate things. Also, if staff isn't reading the thread, they can't respond to your complaint.
Airdale:
I'm an infrequent poster but a daily (x2-x3) reader. I have enjoyed and learned from your posts. Your ice storm reporting was great and made an interesting comparison to us here in NW Arkansas which was also declared a national disaster area. (The land of WalMart and Tyson faired much better than western Kentucky.)
Please continue in the discussions here and ignore the few A**h***s. Also you might consider, as I have, that at least one of them is a plant; here to stir up dissension. He seems to have a posting history of setting one TODer against another.
I'm here to learn and to contribute when I can. Thank you and thank all the regular contributers. And, thanks Leanan.
Edlinuser,
Appreciate ya.
Airdale
Therefore, what do you suggest? Let us just stipulate that half of the warming is AGW. But what if that half is what puts us over the edge. Does this mean we do nothing to try to halt, slow down, or reverse this because "just" half of the result is caused by AGW. Anyway, I am not sure this is much of a news flash, that all warming is not caused by man. There are cycles within cycles and we will forever be attempting to sort these out.
Parenthetically, don't worry. Human beings will not have enough sense to do anything significant,anyway, because we are so short term and greed oriented. Future generations, if any, may wonder why we did not err on the side of caution. I say we should adopt the precautionary principle in matters of this nature.
"Parenthetically, don't worry. Human beings will not have enough sense to do anything significant,anyway, because we are so short term and greed oriented. Future generations, if any, may wonder why we did not err on the side of caution. I say we should adopt the precautionary principle in matters of this nature."
Of course. Only logical. But this would mean putting Resilience ahead of Growth (Which is GM/GE's Achilles Heel
BTW).
Shunyata:
Let the discourse begin. Thus far, I see no responses on your part to any of the responses to your post.
mcgowanmc's comments express the urgency of environmental degradation. I couldn't agree more. I also agree that greenhouse gasses contribute to these problems and should be limited. (likewise industrial agriculture, water mismanagement, etc.)
mcgowanmc's comments, however, presume that global warming is primarily AGW without considering the posted link. Confusing the discussion of observed warming (which I consider certain) with the discussion of source is unhelpful. If we do not understand the mechanisms we run the risk of making the situation worse. The Buddha instructed that positive intention without complete understanding leads to suffering.
To Caelius Spinator I can only say that the report has entire chapters devoted to my summary comments. When I get a break from my day-job I will pull out some relevant paragraphs.
Good point--
And "Fat Al" wants to sell all those books and get rich. This is just a liberal plot to deny my divine right to prosperity, and to stop capitalism and promote communism.
You mean "richer". ;>)
Your post is two days late.
Alan
How? Cap and trade? Benefits the rich. Big Green Business? Benefits the rich. What is there in gov't policy that benefits Joe Blow?
NOTHING.
You offer propaganda.
Try again.
He's joking. Adjust your irony filters.
Ah. Well, it's not an irony filter issue, it's just not knowing each and every poster's perspectives on all the issues.
/sarc or /iron <--- highly recommended.
Cheers
"If we do not understand the mechanisms we run the risk of making the situation worse. The Buddha instructed that positive intention without complete understanding leads to suffering."
"mcgowanmc's comments, however, presume that global warming is primarily AGW without considering the posted link."
I am here. And the only way that man is not responsible
thru felling of virgin forests and burning thru over half
of the planet's fossil fuels while increasing our population by
5.6 Billion is that we're just one more yeast product
in Nature's Pitri Dish and that our knowledge and opposable thumbs are defects in our construct.
Yes, it's no accident that Civilization has only been made
possible by the above and the Holocene.
But to say now, as you and your report must advise, that we're
not in control of thesituation is disingenuous at best.
There are just too many indicators/scientists that now
agree that epochal change happens in this Century.
Let's parse your statements, mcgowanmc.
M1. Civilization was facilitated by large-scale ecological degradation and a favorable climate.
M2. Many scientists agree that massive change is underway. There are many obvious symptoms of these changes.
M3. Therefore global warming is primarily the result of human action.
Statements M1 and M2 are unequivocally true, but M3 does not logically follow. I think what you mean to say is more general, that humans are adversely impacting the ecology and climate. I won't argue with that sentiment, but I wasn't making such a general statement.
Now let's parse my statements (some are only implied above):
S1a. Civilization was facilitated by large-scale ecological degradation and a favorable climate.
S1b. Many scientists agree that massive change is underway.
S1c. Therefore we need to take our continued impact on ecology and climate very seriously.
S2a. A recent study suggests human action is significantly responsible for some aspects of that change, but human action is not the only actor. Although the results are obvious, the system dynamics are complex and poorly understood.
S2b. Therefore therefore human action may have impacted observed global differently than we assume, our actions today may have different effects than we anticipate, and future observations may deviate markedly from current projections. We should act/react carefully.
My conclusions logically follow. And I believe this considered response is more helpful.
Again, you are (intentionally?) conflating a regional report with a global report and are thus greatly distorting the conclusions. Since this is obvious, one must ask: why?
Also, your points above are not what you implied. The full text implies far more, as noted below. I don't consider your first post as being fully honest. Your second is much closer to being so, but is still conflating vital points.
Perhaps the third time will be the charm?
I would add that we must act/react carefully regardless of what extent our contribution is. Our current state is largely an unfortunate result of our failure to act within a framework of carefully projecting the impact of our actions. However, my concern is that someone less engaged in careful reasoning might conclude that we should do nothing either because we can't make a difference or that we will take the wrong action.
Any action is fraught with possible unforeseen negative consequences. Nevertheless, I think it reasonable to conclude that radically cutting our carbon emissions will have a whole host of positive environmental impacts. Cutting mercury and lead emissions alone would be a nice positive side effect. Yes, cutting way back on emissions may have a negative impact on our economy (unproven), but continuing on our current carbon emissions path may very well lead to an intolerable, barely livable at best planet. And that is not even considering all the species we have wiped out and will wipe out.
However, as I said, we will do effectively nothing and continue to wallow in our short term concerns about the economy. So really, we are back to arguing about the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin. Oh yeh. Let's wait until the economy is better and then we can afford to do something. As if we are going to do what we need to do regardless of the state of the economy.
I would add that we must act/react carefully regardless of what extent our contribution is.
Disagreed in that your "carefully" seems to equate with "conservatively" which is a one-way trip to disaster. We need massive change, and quickly.
That said, there are TONS of changes we can make that are in no way dangerous to the environment. Given those changes (sustainable agriculture, loclization, sustainable building, steady-state economy, etc.) are also more likely to get us to long-term sustainability, the risks are small in comparison with allowing ACC to boil or freeze dry us all.
Cheers
In the context of my entire post, I don't think I am implying that we should take a conservative approach. There is a difference between being careful and being so afraid of doing anything wrong that nothing is done. Perhaps I didn't make that clear. I will agree that in conservative circles, the "careful" approach is just another way of putting off doing anything.
Anyway, we should err on the side of doing too much to stop global disaster. I am hardly afraid, however, that we will ever have to worry about doing too much. On a side note, do people realize that many of the protesters at the G20 were protesting the fact that we need to emphasize the climate crisis, not just the economic crisis and both crises emanate from the same root, our unquestioned belief in the magic of the market.
To step a bit beyond that, we need to stop limiting our thoughts to minimizing damage and start thinking about maximizing repair. For example, the "compromise" shouldn't be between a larger and smaller version of Plum Creek's plan to develop Maine's North Woods, but it should cover the range from development to undevelopment - to increasing the forest cover. Widen the road.
cfm in Gray, ME
And, of course, just as we're finding out that AIG
was a broken model back in 2002 (at least) and that
CD Swaps was AIG's final throw,...
We also are finding out that the FDC, EPA are have been
sued by the likes of the NRDC on what they knew and
when they knew it.
"For its part, the NRDC continues to believe that the EPA does, in fact, have evidence from these studies which would show the connection between neonicotinoid pesticides and honeybee deaths, and charges that the EPA has, willfully or simply negligently, failed to make it public."
http://www.celsias.com/article/epa-killing-honey-bees-and-keeping-silent...
So that us dirty (Ph)uckin' [h/t to Leanan on non inflammatory
words] hippies are always having to argue with a stacked deck.
But Nature always bats last and wins, so there is that. ;}
Wasn't that report one of last of El Repug La Shrub's cover them with horse sh*t efforts? Glad La Shrub is back in Texas. Can we nail the coffin cover down on his disinformation efforts yet? Maybe we should send La Shrub on a fact finding mission to the North Pole to check out the sea-ice at the minimum in September as a reward for his outstanding service to the oil industry.
E. Swanson
Shunyatat,
There is no evidence of a desire for balanced discourse in your post.
First, the call for balanced discourse is a cynical jab revealing your assumption there will be little or no balanced discourse.
Second, the cherry-picked points you chose are evidence of a lack of sincerity. To wit: if you can read pages 47 and 48 of that report and then post what you did, you are in no way showing balance in *your* discourse. Does your post not attempt to downplay the reality by not posting the dozens of other points raised in the findings on pages 47 and 48?
Third, your post leaves open just what you are referring to. Given ACC is a global issue, I see in this an attempt to conflate a report on NA with a global report.
Fourth, if memory serves, when this report was originally released it was hailed as a large departure from previous BuCheney admin reports as it lacked the typical re-writing, editing and outright propaganda of previous reports. Hardly a support for anti-ACC nuts.
Fifth, someone else suggested you post at RealClimate. My question is, why didn't you? It is rhetorical.
Cheers
I knew you would find your way to this thread sooner or later ccpo!
Of course I am cherry picking. I am cherry picking very findings and persectives that are overlooked in most discussions on this topic. But I disagree that I am downplaying anything. To the contrary, I have emphasized the seriousness of the situation.
I am glad that I used an unsullied publication to make my point. It makes my point stronger.
That's another false representation. It is something denialists do: You don't mention this! You don't talk about that!
What you are trying to claim is things not explicitly mentioned are explicitly denied. This is a logical fallacy. More importantly, it is a false representation, Shunyata. You know this, so again we are left to wonder at your intentions.
Cheers
I will be very explicit about my intentions:
1. I believe that humans are extremely poor stewards of their environment and that large-scale modifications of behavior are necessary. I can make this argument very directly without involving complex phenomena like AGW.
2. I believe that unbalanced, inaccurate presentation should never be used to motivate others - even if such rhetoric is well intentioned.
3. I believe that AGW is overstated, not non-existent, but overstated.
4. I am concerned that we do not understand the system dynamics well and that large-scale actions could have severe side effects. Restricting energy use is one thing; I am in favor of this from many angles. Geo-engineering (a very extreme measure) is quite another matter. There are many responses in between these end-points. We cannot engineer a proper response without a clear-headed understanding of what we do and do not know.
Pejoratively referring to moderate posters as "denialists" is unhelpful.
Yet, that is exactly what you have done in this thread.
And you offered nothing to support this. What you *did* do was mis-characterize what other people say on the issue and mislead about what the report you cited said. You have already admitted this. The more you type on the subject the more you appear to be retrenching. That is, you are moving your own goal posts. So be it. Do as you wish. But, you can't claim you are looking for balanced debate as you move them around.
They already are, so...?
I wasn't aware either of us had mentioned geo-engineering. Goal posts...
You have no choice. What you believe is happening and what is happening are very different things. You can delude yourself that the science doesn't support this, but that's a fantasy. How do you support it? Did you not read any of what recently came out of Copenhagen? Have you not read any of the articles/research over the last ten months talking about changes speeding up? About methane releases? About record high temps in the Arctic? About how high temps over the Arctic Ocean are reflected in warming as much as 1000 mi. inland? The research showing overall warming of the Antarctic (many decades ahead of schedule)? Etc.?
What do you have to support your contention? Let me answer: Nada. Zip. Zilch. The best you could do was misrepresent a report.
To be clear, by the time all the things we know about climate change can be proven, time will have long run out. By a country mile. Rather, a country marathon. Thus, your stance is logically equal to that of a denialist.
I didn't. Read more carefully.
But I will now. Justification:
1. Your misrepresentations (already covered.)
2. Admitted cherry picking.
3. Denialist talking point: We don't know enough! Don't change the climate, you'll kill yourself! (Borrowed from an old commercial.)
As far as I can tell, you're no different from most other denialists. OK, so maybe you truly don't see yourself that way. I truly don't see any difference between what you have posted here and what certified deniers post.
It's simple: post something credible to support your stance or be prepared to be rocked. Others here have hit you just as hard as I have. That should be a hint to you.
Cheers
I will provide a specific counter-example to your certainty. Read the following analyses:
Chen, J., B.E. Carlson, and A.D. Del Genio, 2002: Evidence for strengthening of the tropical general circulation in the 1990s. Science, 295, 838-841.
Cess, R.D. and P.M. Udelhofen, 2003: Climate change during 1985–1999: Cloud interactions determined from satellite measurements. Geophys. Res. Ltrs., 30, No. 1, 1019, doi:10.1029/2002GL016128.
Hatzidimitriou, D., I. Vardavas, K. G. Pavlakis, N. Hatzianastassiou, C. Matsoukas, and E. Drakakis (2004) On the decadal increase in the tropical mean outgoing longwave radiation for the period 1984–2000. Atmos. Chem. Phys., 4, 1419–1425.
Clement, A.C. and B. Soden (2005) The sensitivity of the tropical-mean radiation budget. J. Clim., 18, 3189-3203.
All four of these references rely upon commonly accepted data sources and arrive at the same conclusion (albeit from different perspectives) - that satellite measurements show more energy being radiated back to space than current GHG models predict. This result implies that current models over-predict future temperature rises.
ccpo, you wrote:
"What you believe is happening and what is happening are very different things. You can delude yourself that the science doesn't support this, but that's a fantasy. How do you support it? Did you not read any of what recently came out of Copenhagen? Have you not read any of the articles/research over the last ten months talking about changes speeding up? About methane releases? About record high temps in the Arctic? About how high temps over the Arctic Ocean are reflected in warming as much as 1000 mi. inland? The research showing overall warming of the Antarctic (many decades ahead of schedule)? Etc.?"
What exactly do you think I believe is happening? I think we agree on what is happening - warming. No denial there.
Yes I have read all of the things you mention. Have you read about record cold temperatures throughout North America and Russia? Have you read about record snow cover last winter? Have you read that solar irradiance was particularly high since the 50s and is now dropping off? Have you read about the historical record in Beryllium isotopes and the implied relationship between climate and solar output? Can't warming "ahead of schedule" be an indicator of a poor "scheduling" model?
I am a mechanical engineer, statistician, and actuary by training. I have a healthy, practical skepticism of models - especially complex models. Out of curiousity, what is your background?
Shunyata wrote:
Your skepticism about models is reasonable. But, the report you first linked to (SAP 1.3) is based on reanalysis, that is, using GCMs to reproduce weather conditions found in actual data. If you ARE actually skeptical about models, I would think you would also be skeptical about the results from the CCSP SAP 1.3. But, you apparently are not.
Consider this. If the variation in solar output is as significant as warming from greenhouse gases, how come the temperatures seen before 1971 have not returned? And, your reference to local cool winter conditions in the U.S. does not tell much about the overall changes over the entire Earth. The Arctic sea-ice extent is running below the long term average and we are just past the time of year for the maximum. Furthermore, there's evidence that the THC in the Greenland Sea was much less this winter (and last winter as well) than in previous years, which might also explain the colder winter conditions around the high latitude North Atlantic.
FYI, I too am trained as a mechanical engineer, but I kept learning...
E. Swanson
I hadn't heard that. Have you a link? I'd like to look it over. Also, there is another reason for colder temps that I believe someone posted here recently having to do with the shifts in wind patterns over the Arctic. Essentially, the shift is pushing warmer air - I believe from the Pacific - into the Arctic and cooler air down into NA and Siberia, iirc.
Cheers
You will notice that I used the word "evidence", which is not the same as "proof".
Last year, I wrote a long comment in response to the CCSP Public Draft of SAP 3.4 in which I attempted to show this evidence. The same conditions have been repeated this year. If you want to read what I wrote, you will need to wade thru the 89 page batch of comments to my comments, beginning on page 65. I'm sorry to say that what I wrote came out more as a rant than as a line-by-line comment which was expected by CCSP, so you will need to read thru page 77 to get to my point. You can download the comments from the CCSP library, if you want (PDF warning).
E. Swanson
Be careful of 'watt' you read at WUWT, Shunyata. Not always the best science. Definitely a good location to use healthy, practical skepticism.
Chen 2002 was corrected for missing altitude modifiers two years after by Wong 2004. Lindzen should know that. I can't explain his insistance on using older data sets with known problems.
http://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/79213.pdf (300K)
And science marches on, see also ...
Reexamination of the Observed Decadal Variability of the Earth Radiation Budget Using Altitude-Corrected ERBE/ERBS Nonscanner WFOV Data
Wong, Wielicki, Lee, et al (2006)
http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/~tak/wong/f20.pdf (800K)
being *exceedingly* out of date. Why are we not surprised? Bring us something more up to date.
A comment, though: if accurate, it is one element of many, which is, dare I say, yet another denialist technique. Because temps are the only area where there is any real gray area, it is the only area you address. Impress us: go beyond temps.
However, we already know solar irradiation's place in AGW, and it is not significant. It's sad that is the best you can do.
As Hansen said in a recent response to some denialist carping on ACC relying primarily on GCM's: Wrong! First is natural observations, second is measurement and third are models. I assume this is something you understand. So, get beyond temps and GCMs. Impress us with your non-denialist stance that sure looks and smells (apologies to Cheech and Chong) like denialist claptrap.
!!!
Wow... because you follow with...
WEATHER! Ding! We have ourselves a true blue denialist. Give 'em enough rope... 100% of the time.
You need to stop posting on this topic. I will not be able to save you from yourself - mostly because I'll continuing to help you hang yourself on your own petard.
Which means you have no standing from which to challenge the climate scientists.
Great, but you are not qualified to question them. All models are not created equal. Perhaps you have read through the two links I provided on that topic?
And nice of you to *once again* show bias: it's not about the models. See comment a few paragraphs up.
Looking forward to that "balanced" view. Which, by the way, would include you looking at the HUGE imbalance of science that *supports* ACC rather than posting only that which supports your stance.
Yet another characteristic of the denier.
Curiosity? Please. You are attempting to set up a straw man argument. One problem: I claim no expertise. This after presenting us with your Appeal to Authority - your own.
Shunyata, get back to discussing energy. You've got nothing to offer on this topic. Leave it to the scientists, which you are not.
Cheers
And many of us are happy that CCPO is willing to do the heavy (and repetitive) lifting of fighting the denialists for us.
Thanks CCPO, even though I feel that man is doomed to kill himself thru stupidity before you manager to change one person's mind.... keep up the fight.
Seconded !
Best Hopes for the Truth :-)
Alan
Thanks, guys, but I think your praise is better reserved for those actually doing the heavy work, such as Swanson and Broberg, et al. I mostly just do the repetitive thingy.
Cheers
The Watchman, doughty servitor, from his steed replied:
"Behooveth the keen shieldman, he who thinketh well,
'Twixt words and works the tokens cunningly to tell.
I hear this band is friendly unto the great Scylding:
Bear forth your weeds and weapons; I'll guide you to my King,
One of the world's many problems is that Global Warming proponents have blown their credibility with a lot of disingenuous statements. The last straw for me was all the chat last year about an ice free Arctic. I heard a climate scientist interviewed, and when asked how that affects how the models play out he said "We haven't looked into that". Say what! Well of course I later worked out that the reason they haven't looked into it is because they don't think it will happen. But we mustn't say that because we mustn't criticize what other Global Warming folk say. Now I just ignore all announcements about global warming doom.
Yet understanding climate change, natural and anthropogenic, remains very important. There is always disingenuous stuff coming out about environmental issues. Reports of Saharan desertification were still coming out for 10 years after it started going the other way. The reason presumably was that the people reporting were the people getting the funding for investigating and combatting desertification. This is yet another reason why scientific and other facts affecting policy needs to be subject to independent investigation. [Today the increasing vegetation in North Africa is significantly reducing the amount of dust over the Atlantic. This makes the Atlantic warmer, and must also reduce nutrient availability for marine life.]
Scientists often work under the tyranny of "peer review". It is extremely hard to get a differing opinion respected by the rest of the scientific "establishment". It is a massive Ponzi scheme, and you're either in or out. Titles are conferred based on "acceptance" (by all the others who think the same; and how could they accept something they don't agree with?), not validity per se. It is no wonder then that dissertations reference a slew of other studies that support the subject at hand, while leaving any contradictory material out. If even contradictory material still exists, because the Ponzi scheme tends to disallow the discordant voice. Published studies become extremely dull and political for the most part and are merely regurgitations ad nauseam of what others regurgitated before and so on.
I have heard this many times and working in science research I know exactly how wrong this regurgitated denialism is. The only way to get funded and published is to extend scientific knowledge. Research tends to follow a logical progression and that is what is being critisized -- pretty funny.
Indeed, it as you say.
So it is true science that makes "progress by extension" can be published. But "progress" by extension implies that one mostly agrees with the accepted theory that one is extending.
On the other hand, it is very hard to break with or be outside of the mainstream and get your work recognized/published.
The kind of science that is easily published is that which which makes small increments to "the current establishment".
Great thinkers and scientists who came up with radical ideas usually had a lot of problems getting through at first, even though eventually (often after they are dead) they became recognized as the pioneers that they really were.
Smart,
Oh, come on. You cannot take yourself seriously here. REad what you wrote then realize the articles and pronouns you use:
- GW proponents
Yes! All of them!
- a climate scientist
He represents all climate scientists!
And, gee, why wouldn't they have already added an ice-free Arctic? Because the models had predicted it wouldn't be happening till the end of this century.
I find it interesting you offer no time lines for these comments and act as if any statements made about an ice-free Arctic were made in a vacuum. In fact, statements ranged from *a very low possibility* of a total melt last year to an eventual melt as early as 2013 all the way out to mid-century.
If you're going to cast doubts don't you think they should be both relevant and logical? What you have posted is neither. It's nothing more than argumentation via straw man. I don't see the point of your post at all. Why did you bother?
Verkerk,
Please. The rants about peer review are old and useless. I'm sure you post rants on medical peer review, engineering peer review, astrophysics peer review... right?
Cheers
My state of annoyance comes from a few things. (1) I've been suckered into getting worried about things that I'm now sure all the real climate scientists knew weren't going to happen, but they lent implicit support by keeping quiet; (2) The precautionary principle and ocean acidification are enough reasons alone to stop digging up coal as soon as possible, but by putting all the argument as about global warming, then if things keep getting colder the public is just going to completely lose trust -- it's happening now; (3) One of the weirdest things is this: If we are now entering a cooling cycle that will mask global warming then when the cycle turns the two will be reinforcing each other and it will presumably heat up quickly. Why don't people who are concerned about global warming make this point? I presume because they are committed to convincing the public that climate change is only man made, and to deny natural climate change any role. This is incredibly silly: there has been lots of natural climate change and it would be nice if we understood it better. I freely admit that I have no relevant expertise and should shut up. But, as I often say, in all matters that are input to public policy, I would like an independent investigation of the facts where the two sides are forced to respond to each others points instead of talking past each other.
They have. See this from 2007:
I don't know why you don't know about this. It's been there for a while.
Additionally, the study the deniers like to cite regarding *cooling* over the next decade or so *also* states exactly what our friend above claims isn't being stated (but which has been discussed on these forums repeatedly), namely, that after the cooling the warming signal will show up again, and stronger than ever.
So, yes, it is being discussed. Thanks for all the fish (red herring), though!
Cheers
I am quite prepared to accept that GCC has a mix of causes. I am not prepared to accept claims that the climate isn't changing, or that our burning of massive amounts of sequestered carbon has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Employment Situation Summary
Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline sharply in March (-663,000),
and the unemployment rate rose from 8.1 to 8.5 percent, the Bureau of Labor
Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Since the recession
began in December 2007, 5.1 million jobs have been lost, with almost two-thirds
(3.3 million) of the decrease occurring in the last 5 months. In March, job
losses were large and widespread across the major industry sectors.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
I ran across this graph in the WSJ this morning.
If it is correct, the number of jobs added stopped growing in 2005. Small businesses have been adding fewer and fewer jobs since then. Small businesses seem to be sensitive to changes in the economy, and have been seeing greater changes than large businesses.
I don't know what the % of total jobs in the USA are government employees, but IMO it is steadily rising. My guess would be the % is at the highest level ever.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27844127
These stats would suggest otherwise, especially at the Fed level.
I didn't analyze these, but a quick glance shows that fed, state, local are up and Education and Health is way up over the period.
Yeah, I just eyeballed them, too. So, I went back and did some quick calculations. These are percentage of the total workforce (at least that measured in these stats, which appear to be non-farm)
1999 2009
Fed 1.9 1.8
State 3.2 3.4
Local 8.6 9.5
The fed percentage is actually lower - wonder how much of that is due to the Bush decision to contract out more gov't work?
State is up a little, but Local gov't employment has risen almost a whole percentage point in 10 years!
Still, to see if these are historic levels, I suspect we'd have to go back to the 70s and compare those numbers.
You have to include Education and Health. The other thing is that the way the controlled crony "capitalism" is expanding in the USA under Bush and now Obama an increasing number of jobs are carried by taxpayer capital. It is basically a kiting or Ponzi scheme-if you are a resident of the USA and you are not directly or indirectly supported by the taxpayer then you are the sucker paying for the party-no economy can generate sustainable wealth creation with such a structure.
I see no reason why you would "have to" include Education and Health, unless you are also going to include things like defense contractors, aerospace industry, etc.
As for "the other thing" - you're going to have to do a little more than just make an assertion if you want folks to follow you. Identifying what you think is a Ponzi scheme would be a start, too. And the old succor versus sucker argument should be thrown out with the belief in RR's "supply-side" voodoo, er, economics.
Here is a typical example-Fannie and Freddie paying out 210 million in bonuses-these are all USA government employees (not classified as such)-the non government sector of the USA is cracking under these ever growing burdens http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Fannie-Freddie-worker-bonuses-apf-14844742...
Brian, you need to turn of the Rush show. This blather about the government destroying the private sector is just so much ideological nonsense. In case you didn't notice, we just finished a long period of supposed anti-government administration(s) and the result hasn't exactly been fabulous.
I do not believe that gov't can fix the problem, but the suggestion that it is big government that caused our current situation flies in the face of all evidence. Is gov't a part of the problem? Sure, in as much as its a part of a complete system that is failing. Would that system come back into balance and return to growth should government stop spending? Not a chance. It is the system that is the problem.
I am not sure the guv needs to destroy it in the USA-it is pretty weak at this point. Typical example from today's news illustrating what you term the "private sector" in the USA-the "private sector" pension fund managers for the Colorado state employees fund destroyed the fund and took enormous bonuses anyway, which state lawmakers want returned and naturally these said no thanks. The head manager said raise contributions, taxes, or lower payouts, but our fat slice comes off the top in any event. I guess there is a limitless wealth machine in the USA that can fund all this indefinitely, as you state.
Brian - what ARE you talking about? It appears you have now completely changed your argument. You started with govt is too big, morphed into govt is the enemy of the private (non govt, if you prefer) sector and now you are talking about some pension fund manager. Do you even have an argument?
And when you point out where I mentioned a "limitless wealth machine," I'll respond further.
Thats socially destabilizing, where do they think they and their families will live? Have they noticed that there is a strong international preassure for getting rid of tax havens? The next logical step if the economical system resets hard would be make a revocation to get resources for productive investments and keeping poor people from suffering. Btw, the last time we had a revocation in Sweden were in the 1680:s.
The % of total jobs in the USA that are government employees might be at an all time high if you exclude military personnel. If military is included, we are nowhere near it.
Only because so many government jobs have been "contracted out". Private prisons ... what the hell. Certainly the percentage of GDP being consumed by government spending is out of control, regardless if they directly employ the people or not. At least it blunts the public sector unions somewhat (something I wish Canada could get under control).
All you need to look at is the ratio of gov't spending to the active production of the US (not phantom GDP with finance and gov't included, but real products and services).
If you want more gov't, let's have it at the local and state levels, in that order. Those are easier to reign in, and they don't have the ability to print their own money and incur infinite debt.
IMO there are non economic factors at work that are affecting the number of jobs. One of them is demographics and the other is government tax and Social Security law.
It is well know that baby boomers are reaching retirement age. As they close in on 62 a lot of them like myself decide to drop out of the formal labor market. I did it in 1991 when I was 48. I figured I could make it until 62 on savings and income from my relatively small farm. And it worked.
I've since noticed that there are not many men over the age of about 55 around here in formal jobs. The reasons are obvious. Going to work gets ever more tedious with age and employers prefer younger, easier to train and more attractive employees. I would too if I were hiring.
The other big reason for the decline in jobs and job seekers is that if one takes reduced Social Security at age 62, one is subject to a tax on SS benefits if earned income is over a certain amount. Also one is subject to having to pay back part or all of Social Security benefits depending on earned income. These are powerful incentives not to work and since a lot of people take SS at 62 after coasting though their unattractive to the labor market years (45-62) it has an affect on the number of jobs in the economy.
It may be that as the baby boomers come into full retirement bloom jobs will decline further on a noneconomic basis. As we age we need less and less except for medical care. If the house and car are paid for, we need little income if we live modestly. Some savings and a little side business of some kind often does the trick.
Where the money will come from to keep up SS and Medicare benefits is another matter. As long as payroll taxes with a cap of about $100k is the SS revenue source there is a problem but it is not unsolvable IMO.
I think much of what you say reinforces my long-standing belief that the Baby Boomer retirement is a megatrend with far-reaching effects.
The lowering of income and lifestyle you mention is reasonable, but regardless of reason it will contribute to the deflationary decline of the business base as well as the tax base. Fewer workers means less taxes, but it also means less spending in the economy at large. Unfortunately the withdrawal of 401K and retirement funds will likely far outpace the contributions of the remaining workers, especially since they'll be getting tapped hard by growing taxes, so the funds will tend to decline in value.
For those who live off their investments, decline in value will rapidly erode the capital if the outflow remains the same, so most likely retirees will have to continue to scale back, else they'll have to work more.
IMHO, these factors in concert with the debt overhang point to a long deflation, even if there are some inflationary zones embedded within.
I think the current savings interest rate versus loan interest rate is telling -- I get 2% on savings but pay 6-8% at least for a car, and 25% on some credit cards. If you can't live on 2% returns you'll die on 25% interest -- the only rationale path is a cash lifestyle, or very meager subsistence from even relatively large savings.
In the longer term (say 5-10 years) I doubt it is reasonable to expect a small worker base to raise their families and support the Boomer retirees -- it's not just a question of money, but of productivity. Wealth will naturally shift from the retiree to the worker, despite the tax actions of the gov't to stop it, and in the end retirees will end up working more too, probably in part-time and side-line jobs.
Boomer here, got my paperwork done. I always thought I'd just let it go and collect more, but now in light of everything, I getting what I can as fast as I can. Why not, when AIG collects and heads for Vegas. I always paid in, and never ever took from the system, even in some really bad times.
So now I'm watching the system bail all the fat cats, I'm going to take all I can get. Fuck'em all.
Everyone else is trying to cash in, I'll take as much as I can get till it's no longer there. I suspect many more of us boomers are going to do the same. BTW, we had no choice in our conception, so I don't think we are the cause of all the ills of the world. The world actually took a good shot at getting rid of many of us. Most of us can shoot quite straight though, had a war we did, learned some stuff there. At least the ones who came back. Children who want to challenge us ought to think twice about that.
In 82, I was raising kids in a hole in the ground , that's what we were all shitting in as well. Cut spruce and fir to sell to the mill. Seems like the world is back there again. I never asked anyone to help, my family, my problems, but you know now, I see everyone trying to cash in, sick, but yah, I'm finally applying for what I put in.
Perspective is key.
Peace
Don in Maine
I work for a small (under 500) company that provides services to Fortune 500 large companies. Mostly capital improvement type work. What we've noticed since about Q3 - 2008 is that those large companies have tightened up and are not spending any money. The meager contracts we are getting from these companies is usually consulting on how they can get by with what they already have, or consulting on their downsizing plans. Our gov't contacts haven't skipped a beat but that has historically been a mere fraction of our work. Matching our professional staff to the amount of work has meant substantial staff reductions and I can only cross my fingers that my job isn't the next to go. Small business is getting slaughtered.
The impression I get from the Swedish industry is an overall contraction but so far not a large ammount of bankruptcies and manny large investments are still being made.
My son runs a small car service business that the family owns. I am fairly anal and track revenue like a hawk.
We started seeing a slight decline in late 2006 after nearly a two year steady revenue expansion. The deline more or less stabilized at 12% YoY on a monthly basis, but increased dramatically late last year as expected.
However, this past March was by far the largest YoY monthly drop percent wise at 40%. A lot of that was a virtual collapse in Spring Break travel and cruise line family travel.
Down from eight vehicles and seven drivers in 2006 to three vehicles and three drivers.
Corporate travel from the likes of Motorola, PepsiCola International, and various cruise lines in South Florida has dried up as well as indivuals with their own businesses.
Our debt load is very low, but still...sometimes you wonder.
Pete
Or there is more people working in small businesses. Think about it if all businesses fire 1% percent of their workforce and four times as many work in small businesses the number for small businesses will get four times as high.
DipChip, not to worry because the recovery has begun. However it is just not a substantial improvemnt.
This is the highest unemployment rate in 25 years, since 1983.
Ron P.
This is the highest unemployment rate in 25 years, since 1983.
Ron P.
With January revised downward (anybody ever seen one
revised upward?) to 750 K, it means that March will be revised down to 800 K.
The worst ever.
And Obama talking right over the release. And the markets
barely budging.
Welcome to the BananaRama Republic:
www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article9805.html
"US syndicates remain beneficiaries and administrators, while regulators and law enforcement chase advocates of free markets. Worse, the negligent, responsible, and corrupt remain in charge within the US Dept Treasury, as representatives from monoliths Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan themselves. Reform is impossible with these people still in charge. Nothing has changed on the power structure inside the USGovt, nor the controlled funnel of hundreds of billion$ in funds. The US president does not seem to understand that the global financial system designed atop the US Dollar has broken irretrievably, and must be scrapped, not adjusted.
For several months, the US Federal Reserve has been doubling duty as a virtual US banking system. For the past several years, a Shadow Banking System has operated without regulatory oversight, which is so deeply engrained with corruption that one cannot adequately describe its depth of depravity to commoners. Yet the US president acts as though the US remains in the dominant position in global finance, when the entire world has rejected its catbird seat post. THE UNITED STATES NO LONGER SITS IN THE PREMIER POSITION. That is precisely why so much conflict has come and will continue to come. The G20 London Meeting is a funeral."
This is just wishful thinking. The dollar remains the global currency of choice. US Treasuries remain the consensus safest place to park your money. Oil, Gold, and most any globally traded commodity remains priced in dollars. The NY markets remain the largest and are still the best place to raise capital.
I could go on, but why? Despite the pronouncements of Brown and Obama, this G20 meeting produced no significant departures from the system that existed before - this was not the equivalent of Bretton-Woods, not in the wildest of imaginations.
Don't you love the spin on these things - It's not collapsing quite as fast this month as last month, so we must be "finding a bottom," which of course means we've started the recovery. Hooray! Let's all go by some stocks and securities.
"Zimbabwe's MDC ministers accept official Mercedes cars"
“I had just come into a building with no running water and I was being offered a Mercedes Benz. It was astonishing.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article6024469.ece
Re: Scumbags: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em (linked uptop)
Of course, once again, since hitting an annual low of $14 in 1998, oil prices rose for nine of the following ten years, peaking out at $100 in 2008, and the fastest rate of increase was not 2008, it was 2000:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist_chart/RWTCa.jpg
The year showing the most rapid increase in oil prices, 2000, was followed by a down year (2001), and I suspect that the 2009 annual price decline, percentage wise, will look a lot more like the 2001 decline than what we are seeing in the current monthly data. But even the current monthly data, from 12/08 to 3/09, show an annualized rate of increase of over +60%/year.
I think that a combination of voluntary + involuntary net oil export reductions are bringing supply & demand back into balance, and I suspect that future net export reductions will be mostly involuntary.
Once again, note that the Cornucopians make two claims: (1) Rising oil prices are due to speculation and (2) Falling oil prices are due to Peak Oilers being wrong (No worries for a hundred years).
They rarely, if ever, discuss the fact that world crude oil production stopped growing in 2005 (with a cumulative shortfall between what we would have produced at the 2005 rate versus what we actually produced) or the fact that we have seen two years of declining world net oil exports, based on EIA data (with probably a year over year increase in net oil exports in 2008, to a level below the 2005 rate, similar IMO to year over year increases that the UK and Indonesia showed in their net exports declines).
What is wild is that everybody, suppliers and customers alike agrees that $53 oil is cheap. That definitely wasn't the case just a couple years ago.
The problem now is that if the MSM doesn't talk about
oil, or unemployment (like haaving Obama talking over
the release at 7:30 C), or the Empire crumbling in Korea,
Iran, then they have to talk about trivia.
America has spent the last 8 years doing this and now 1/2
of America is a paycheck away from disaster.
America has gotten all the warnings it's gonna get.
I'm waiting for that commercial free moment where all the MSM
are targeting... False Flag, Immigration, Riots, or
Failure of our Colonial Forces.
Even people who never learned about statistics seam to instinctively grasp standard deviation. The massive price spike and collapse has changed peoples view of normal. I think this opens the door for future price spikes to grow even higher next time, without much panic from the masses. They can't possibly think it is worse than the exponential growth of our government budget/dept.
I wouldn't be surprised if there are more houses for sale in the USA under 1000 barrels ($53000) than at the peak ($147000)-which would make this a record of relative sorts.
Creeping Normalcy in action. - Although, Galloping Normalcy is more like it :-)
By the way, where is Nate? This is his kind of observation :-)
Not exactly related to oil, but many science-minded people here might be interested to hear that YouTube has struck a blow against rationalism.
James Randi foundation's YouTube account suspended.
Never mind. They've been restored. Don't know if it was in response to protests or other issues.
Rational Response has also been restore.
Inherent in this statement is the assumption that there will be an economic recovery.
I wonder, though, just how valid is that assumption? It becomes even more questionable given the administration's recent policy responses.
American households have way too much debt on their balance sheets. American businesses likewise have too much debt on their balance sheets. There is no way that many households and businesses can possibly pay all that debt.
But instead of dealing with this debt, destroying it through bankrupcies and forced write-downs, the Obama adminstration instead wants to 1)move it from the balance sheets of the big banks onto the balance sheet of the U.S. government; and 2)make rule changes to accounting standards so that banks are not forced to write it off. But by pursuing these policies, the debt persists. It continues to act like a huge lead anchor pulling households and businesses into the abyss.
The point I'm driving at is that oil and gas producers, many of whom are also loaded to the gills with debt, may be more than just a little naive to think that an economic recovery is in the works that will save them.
Their only hope for salvation--meaning a significant rebound in oil and natural gas prices--may be that supply destruction will occur faster than demand destruction. But to hope for a rebound in demand, especially given the recent actions of the current administration, seems overly optimistic.
Demand growth to any significant degree seems unlikely for the US, but our consumption had hit a plateau, even before the recent decline.
Compare our recent petroleum consumption trend to countries like China, India and net oil exporters like Saudi Arabia (EIA):
US Consumption:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/country/img/charts/US_cons_large.png
China Consumption:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/country/img/charts/CH_cons_large.png
India Consumption:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/country/img/charts/IN_cons_large.png
Saudi Consumption:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/country/img/charts/SA_cons_large.png
So, what happens in China, India and Saudi Arabia, et al in 2010 and later?
I suppose one definitely needs to set oil prices apart from domestic natural gas prices. They're two different markets.
And as a person who depends on the sale of oil and natural gas for his livlihood, I certainly hope that you are right. A quick rebound in oil and natural gas prices would suit me just fine.
However, over the last few weeks I've began to question some of my own assumptions. Is my belief that oil and natural gas prices will recover quickly just wishful thinking? Or would a more prudent strategy be to prepare for a long winter?
Perhaps this is little more than a manifestation of my profound disappointment and disilusionment in recent policies announced by the Obama administration. The administration seems to lack any comprehension of what is needed to get the nation out of its economic funk.
And while I agree entirely that it will not be the U.S. that leads the world out of the demand slump, especially given the actions of the current administration, the U.S. nevertheless is currently the biggest market for the world's manufactured goods and the world's oil. Also, much of the debt that needs to be written off is foreign-owned. If this debt is eventually written off, which it seems, in one form or another, to be inevitable, this surely will prove disruptive to the economies of the countries that are the posessors of that debt.
Some country or group of countries will emerge from this as the new world economic leader. But I am now beginning to question whether the interregnum could last several, if not many, years.
"The administration seems to lack any comprehension of what is needed to get the nation out of its economic funk."
i think the administration comprehends that time is needed.
There will of course be an economic recovery but it is hard to say when, where it will start or even in what currency the recovery is counted. What I hope for is a recovery that benefits changes in consumtion habits and production and that people who add value to the economy will gain most since we wont get a fast and good recovery withouth them.
Why? What economic law says that "of course" we must have an economic recovery? Why could this not be the beginning of the total world collapse that world ecologists have been predicting for some time?
Oil has peaked, arable land has peaked, coral is dying, the world's fish population is a fraction of what it once was, the climate is warming and changing fast, deserts are expanding, rain forest are disappearing, water tables are droppong meters per year, rivers are drying up, species are going extinct and a host of other problems. All these things are coming together at the same time. Synchronicity is the word Lester Brown used to describe these phenomena. This could just be the beginning of the end, the end of the world as we know it.
To just say, pell-mell, that of course the economy will recover, seems to be a little presumptuous to me.
Ron P.
Watch out, someone might call you an "apocalypticist."
As we know, all those findings by geologists, ecologists, and climate experts are culturally biased by the Revelation to John.
You know, how "Darwinism" is just 'the Anglo-Saxon "take" on the history of life, [and] might be viewed by some as being "racist".'
http://counterpunch.com/mazur04022009.html
[cue eyeroll.]
Mike, I don't care what names people call me but "apocalypticist" is not likely to be one of them. That implies religious fundamentalism and that is not me.
But thanks for the link. I found it interesting. Biologists Lynn Margulis has gone off the deep end. She is was the first wife of Carl Sagan and mother of two of his four children. I was once a great fan of hers. She wrote the introduction to Reg Morrison's "The Spirit in the Gene." But lately she has gone completely nuts. From your link:
The problem is, no one except Marqulis seems to have gotten the word that neo-Darwinism is dead. Everyone else seems to think it is alive and kicking. Marqulis, and the late Stephen Jay Gould, tried desperately to kill neo-Darwinism by reviving Richard Goldschmidt's "Hopeful Monster" but neither had any success. The rest of the biological world just laughed at both of them.
Because of her claim that Darwinism cannot explain the appearance of new species she has become the darling of Creationists. They get a belly laugh out of the Hopeful Mosnter theory. They poke fun at it by saying things like aa snake laid an egg and a bird hatched out. And for the same reason Gould was called "The Accidental Creationist".
Return of the Hopeful Monster
Ron P.
All you are doing is arguing strenuously for conformity of thought-this guy's theories are not popular therefore they are flawed. At least the guy was trying to discover the truth, unlike the herd of laughing sheep.
No, I am arguing that to proclaim neo-Darwinism dead when you are the only one who thinks it is dead is absurd. The popular acceptance of a theory, (neo-Darwinism), may not mean it is true but it sure as hell means it is not dead. And the world, including both mainstream biologists as well as creationists, is laughing at the Hopeful Monster theory, and justifiably so.
Ron P.
It appears that you and your gang (including your creationist buddies) are laughing at something you don't even understand-you can't even identify problems with his theory other than providing evidence of lack of popularity among the docile.
Brian, I can identify many problems with the Hopeful Monster theory. (It is the theory that new species appeared suddenly, birthed or hatched from a totally different species.) This is simply not the place to do it. One or two posts on the subject is okay but that's enough. If you would like to hear just a few of the many problems with this theory then post me. My email address is in my profile. I will post no more posts here on the subject. And I take it as a personal insult when you say that I do not understand it. Your posts are getting as rude and snarky as those from River used to be. I have read books on the subject. And I have no creationist buddies.
Ron P.
I was about to give this theory credit for plausibility then one horrible weakness occurred to me:
Assuming that the "Hopeful Monster" does prove to be viable, with whom is it going to breed?
Hehehe, that's why the monster is so hopeful. Seriously, there are many flaws with the theory but that is tha one fatal one. Different species are identified as such, primarly, because they are unable to breed with any other species. Of course one might argue that there was a litter of little monsters. But litter mates are usually from different zygotes, meaning only one would be a monster. If they all came from a single zygote, all identical monsters, then they would all be the same sex.
Ahh back to the drawing board.
Ron P.
There is an enormous body of literature showing just this - mutation and selection leading to speciation. For example, a single mutation can lead to the reorganization of a fish's morphology and make them more competitive in a new environment. The gene is Pitx1, the species is stickleback, the new environment is fresh water. Link:
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/medical/2004/april21/fish.html
There is a very large body of evidence on the evolution of Darwin's finches in real-time, year by year, by the team of Grant&Grant. For original publications, search PUBMED for Grant and Geospiza. A very good summary of this and other work on evolution happening now can be found in Weiner's book "The beak of the finch".
This is not striving for conformity, this is compelling evidence. The estimate based on observational data is that a new species of Darwin's finches can form within about 100 years if climate change causes selection pressure to go into one direction, for example continuous drought.
Then we must certainly be hopeful that before all the oil, soil, and-what-not is gone, humans can fly like a bird rather than drive and having chlorophyll in their skin, will be able to assimilate CO2 rather than exhaling it.
Or even the last bunch of Darwinists (neo or not) standing on earth right before their extinction would then say: "yes we could have, had we had more time...."
Ron, and yet isn't it awesomely interesting that someone of Margulis' stature should go off the deep end? It's kind of like Linus Pauling finding god in Vitamin C.
Her theory of how organelles developed from invasive cellular forms is just fascinating.
But now straight-up Darwin is too much for her. Maybe there's a little creationist in us all.
Gould had ideological issues (being a Marxian) that blocked he and others, Rose for example, from accepting neo darwinism. There is a ideological war between the Gould side and the Dawkins side of this divide, with Dawkins the obvious winner. I was rooting for Gould, coming out of Marxism background, but one must except observable results.
That's not at all the meaning I took away from the counterpunch article.
People tend to use Darwin's writings like others do scripture. Think of it like a bible for secularists. They pour over what Darwin inscribed, hoping to find that phrase or that passage that supports or reinforces their ideology, ignoring all the rest.
Such is the case with "survival of the fittest," a concept articulated by Herbert Spencer 10 years before Darwin's Origin of Species was even published. As Barzun explians:
From the counterpunch interview it is not at all clear what Mazur means when she says "neo-Darwinism." But it seems rather clear that what Margulis takes aim at during the interview is what others have called "Social Darwinism." Barzun elaborates:
I suppose two of the most renowned Social Darwinists of late were Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman. As Phillips observed:
David Sloan Wilson perhaps put it more succinctly. He identifies Ayn Rand as the latest poster child for right-wing zelots. She is the latest prophet of “New Atheism,” a “stealth religion” that has been around for many moons. He dubs her a “religious zealot” and intones that “if you look at her creative objectivism you will find that it is like religous fundamentalism in every way.” Her take on natural selection is like “professional wrestling,” he says. “Great fun, but don’t mistake it for a real contest.”
If Mazur meant "Social Darwinism" when she said "Neo-Darwinism," then she's just an idiot! They are not the same thing, though many have tried to slime the Neo- as a retread of the Social-.
Also:
Like whom? I've never heard of such nonsense. Darwin's ideas have been modified and improved upon over the last 150 years. Origin of Species is not set in stone, like the commandments.
Hell, Darwin didn't even know what genes were!
I'm glad you asked. To quote Barzun again:
I'm still not getting it. I don't see anyone using Darwin "like scripture," or as a new religion.
And once again--Social Darwinism was a misapplication of his ideas and has nothing to do with Neo-Darwinism, the thing Mazur hopes is "dead."
There's little difference between Ayn Rand invoking Darwin to justify a morally indefensible social order and some bible-thumper invoking scripture to justify slavery. To quote Martin Luther King:
That's a far cry from your claim that "People tend to use Darwin's writings like others do scripture. Think of it like a bible for secularists. They pour over what Darwin inscribed, hoping to find that phrase or that passage that supports or reinforces their ideology, ignoring all the rest."
Most of the people who invoke Darwin to justify the status quo have probably never read him. And they certainly wouldn't take his word as infallible, or even as having any particular weight. They might love his ideas, but they don't think he was a prophet.
Sorry, DS, but I think you're off the wall on this one.
Maybe so. I'm certainly not immune to ideological biases. But I think I'm hardly alone on this one.
To reiterate the quote from David Sloan Wilson above:
As Eric Hoffer demonstrated, a true believer is a true believer, and if the history of the 20th century teaches us anything, it is that people can become just as passionately and irrationally commited to a secular belief system as they can to a religious one.
IMHO it is all about the ego-it is humbling to admit that you don't have the answers. Thus, the religious zealouts match their certainty against that of the Darwinian zealots-all questions are shouted down or ridiculed. The latter zealots are an intersting bunch in that their certainty appears to be derived from a child-like innocent belief in the wisdom of conventional thought i.e. "book learning". Thus any logical arguments are refuted with quotations, references, scientific journals, etc. never logical counter-arguments.
But what can I do? I plead guilty!
I can embrace my agnosticism just as fervently as some scientist can embrace his particular version of Darwinism or some sectarian can embrace his religion.
As Heilbroner argued:
Memorable quote.
BOLLOCKS.
You don't learn evolution from books as much as you do in the FIELD.
The idea that "quotations," etc. are diametrically opposed to "logical counter-arguments" is yet more nonsense.
Maybe so, but what you claimed was basically that Darwin is their god. That's where you go off the rails, IMO. Some secularists may be zealots, but that doesn't mean they look to Darwin's writings the way religious zealots look to the Bible.
Oh no?
Well let's examine one of the most virulent and fanatical belief systems, either of the secular or religious variety, to ever inflict itself upon Western civilization: National Socialism. The following references set out not only how one of the most basic tenets of the Nazi creed--the "perfect race"--was an outgrowth of Darwinism, but also set out the methods that were used so that it engendered a religious-like fervor amongst the people:
Oh. Yeah. That's right.
It's a direct line from Darwin to Hitler.
You're insane.
Well I may or may not be insane, but that's irrelevant to the fact that Nazi racial theory derived from the writings of Darwin, which is demonstrable and has been well documented.
Thus a theory articulated by Darwin, interpreted by the Nazis, was ultimately to manifest itself in the final solution.
OK. Let's engage in some more of your "logic."
Christianity is the source of all genocide, racial cleansing and mass murder.
Google "Columbus," "De Soto," "Crusades," "Inquisition," "Anti-Semitism," "Catholic Church + Nazi collaboration," "Exodus 22:19," "Exodus 23:23," "Deuteronomy 13:13-19."
A wee sample from the font of genocide, Das Bible:
Mike: You are obviously unable to follow even the most rudimentary line of reasoning. He was trying to explain the fanatical similarities between religious zealotry and Darwinian zealotry-now you are arguing with yourself.
You are not getting it: A misused source is not a critique of that source. If I selectively use the bible, I can justify genocide the same way the Nazis misappropriated Darwin. The intention was to wryly point out his selective "reasoning."
So are we now to believe that Nazi racial theory is a religious and not a secular ideology? That seems to be where you and barrett (see his Hitler quotes below) are taking us.
I've got to admit, I've never heard it articulated before that Nazism is a religious ideology. But I'm not at all closed to the idea, though it strikes me as being somewhat of a half-truth: Nazism whitewashed of its secular element so that it doesn't tarnish secularism, or Darwinism.
In a separate comment below you indicate that you are "a member of the sub-species Homo eroticus" yourself. Even though I fully understand that you may have been a victim of relgious persecution, I nevertheless think it pretty shortsighted to think a gay person can always find a safe harbor in secularism, or in science. I don't know how much you have studied Nazi racial theory, or its pseudoscience, but it had a strong homophobic element as well as well as the much better known racial component:
But I suppose that if you believe Nazism was a religious ideology, my arguments are moot.
That the Nazis misused the writings of Darwin says nothing AT ALL negative about the writings of Darwin. Likewise the "Social Darwinism".
With *FAR* more legitimacy than the Nazis, Southerners (and later the Confederacy) used the Bible to justify slavery.
Great thinkers and writers cannot be held responsible for every possible misuse of their writings.
Alan
Exactly!
Which carries us right back to my original premise. It matters not one iota whether one cloaks their pernicious ideologies in the robes of Darwinism like Ayn Rand or Hitler, or in the garb of Christianity like the Southern White racists or the homophobes. This impugns not upon Darwinism or Christianity, but upon those who invoke them to justify their own perverse ideologies.
That's not the "premise" with which you initiated your argument:
This is a blanket statement against "people" and "secularists" who accept Darwinism, not against Nazis. It's a faulty generalization which you attempt to "prove" by citing the (Christian) Nazi misappropriation of Darwin.
Exactly.
DS, I really think you're pushing this analogy too far. I enjoy your contributions here, but this is making me wonder if all the other things you've posted are built on similarly weak foundations.
But my point of view very much is a generalization. It goes to the heart of what one believes the nature of man to be. If one has an abiding faith in objectivsm and scientific materialism, then one believes man can overcome his emotions and irrationality. In this group I would put those who believe they know who the "true" Darwin to be. But if one believes as I do, then this is a doubtful proposition.
This is not to say that everyone who invokes Darwin's writings does so to nefarious ends. Quite the opposite, his adherents run the full gamut from noble to benign to downright evil.
And granted, in our culture of technical control, my world view is certainly a dissident one. However, I am far from being alone. Examples:
The idea of European superiority didn't originate with Darwin, it was part of the culture of the time. You can get there tough with a sloppy reading of some of the more vague passages in Descent of Man, but Hitler didn't have much use for Darwin and had his own ideas.
John Wilkins has a nice blog entry on the subject of Darwin and Racism.
Thanks for the link, barrett. Very informative.
It's a breath of fresh air to interject some intelligence, thoughfulness and capacity for self-examination into this otherwise highly polarized and rancorous debate.
Probably better to get quotes from the source rather than profiling from political writers. The folks at talkorigins usually do a lot of legwork on claims about Darwin. It appears his ideas were based on his own personal twisted philosophy and had nothing to do with discoveries by Darwin. Darwin's books were on the banned list so he didn't have much use for them.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA006_1.html
What diversity of views would that be? I must've missed all those other valid scientific theories capable of explaining adaptive complexity. Most of the so-called diversity of views within this field consists of subtleties that would be lost on students who have yet to form a clear understanding of what evolution even is or how it works.
I would think the very fact that this debate exists between those who believe in neo-Darwinism and those who don't is prima facie evidence of the diversity of opinion that exists within the scientific community concerning Dawinism.
Well, it's a little like the AGW argument. There are thousands of scientists who think AGW is a fact and there are three, perhaps four, who think AGW is all poppycock. Likewise there are thousands of biologists who understand neo-Darwinism as being an explanation, on the molecular level, of Darwinism. There are three or four who question it.
DS, it is hardly a 50-50 proposition. It is more like a 1000 to 1 proposition. Not that this proves anything, but there are always a few who questions even the blatantly obvious.
Ron P.
Note the phrase "scientific theories"; I am not talking about the standard argument from incredulity. Whether or not evolution happens is not what the scientists are arguing about. Instead they (we) discuss punctuated equilibrium, species selection, allele frequencies, etc. The bones of contention are the details of Darwinian evolution, not its veracity as a theory.
Dawkins has stated, though I cannot find the source right now: "Natural selection is a process, evolution is history."
Darwin makes it quite clear that he believed natural selection caused change over time. Now you may not call that evolution but that is what the vast majority of evolutionist believe that is exactly what it is. Also, sexual selection is a form of natural selection. For instance mutatations that make the male more attractive to the female will be passed on because she selects that male. That is natural selection pure and simple.
Ron P.
Gould used to say something like "Evolution is a fact. Natural selection is the theory."
I have long taught that the mechanism of evolution can be summed up in five words: natural selection with random variation.
At the risk of sounding picky, I would phrase it as random variation (mutation due to various factors) and then natural selection determines the fitness of those variations. A change has to occur before the system can vote, so to speak.
Cheers
Repeating convential dogma proves nothing-there is no evidence for RANDOMNESS-if you can find hard evidence present it-what is the point of just parroting theories.
No evidence for randomness! Surely you jest. If there were no randomness we would all be like identical twins. Randomness can be observed everywhere. Dog breeders choose the best characteristics to breed from random differences in the litter. The first five chapters of "On the Origin of Species was about variation meaning random differences in animals. Darwin showed what great varieties of pigeons could be developed when breeders chose the random variations they desired.
Only identical twins have the exact DNA. All other siblings show some random variation in their DNA and this is observed in their DNA profile.
Randomness can be observed everywhere Brian. It can be observed in the difference in puppies of every litter, in the difference between children of the same family. Everywhere you choose to look you can find randomness. To say there is no evidence of randomness it truly absurd.
Ron P.
Variation isn't randomness-I am very surprised that you don't understand the difference between the two.
Variation is randomness! I am shocked that you do not understand what randomness is. Randomness is random variation! The fact that you do not understand that randomness means random variation shows that you haven't a clue as to what evolution is all about.
TIME OUT! Random variation was the phrase you objected to in Pragma's post and called randomness yourself!
http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v10/n2/full/5200771a.html
Ron Patterson
When you are discussing life forms, terming variation as "random" or "random variation" doesn't change reality-simply terming something as "random" doesn't prove it is-all it proves is that the purpose of the variation can not be understood or explained. Try to think outside the box for two seconds.
Brian, your posts are getting down right comical. No one is trying to understand the purpose of random variation. Random variation has no purpose, it just happens. Random variation is the driving force of evolution. There is always random variation in the offspring of every species. Nature chooses, (natural selection) those variations that benefit the species. Random variations that are harmful to the species obviously have little chance of being passed down, very far anyway.
Random variation has a cause, which is well understood, but not a purpose. Random variation is caused by copying errors in the DNA.
Think it through man; it is obvious, blatantly obvious. You are objecting to so many different things that you are confusing yourself. Calling random variation RANDOMNESS then denying they are the same thing. (The original caps were yours.)
Ron P.
You keep repeating the same mantra over and over-variation in life forms is purposeless. You feel that simply stating this repeatedly or providing references to authority figures who repeat this proves the logic of your assertion. Others prove their point by referencing the Bible as the ultimate authority figure-different authors, same game. You don't understand the purpose of variation in life forms, I don't, Jimmy Swaggart doesn't and Darwin didn't.
Purpose is an unnecessary precondition.
Randomness is sufficient.
lsdpfjdfoejdpejdoejdeodjeijdjhd. Makes about as much sense.
You have no comprehension of scale and corrective mechanisms obviously.
For you, purpose is a necessary precondition, but whence the purpose?
Brian, this is called question-begging. You assume the proposition (that variation has purpose) that you should be trying to prove. Simply asserting "it's not random, it has a purpose we just don't understand yet," is also arguing from ignorance.
No-by defining an action as "random" you have defined that action as purposeless using the commonly used definition of "random"-therefore you are making an unproven assertion. An ACCURATE assertion would be no one has yet determined whether or not variation in life forms in "random"-it might be random, it might not be "random". This isn't rocket science and IMO you would perceive this rather easily if you weren't so psychologically wedded to info you were taught by authority figures years ago.
Mutations caused by cosmic ray hits are random by any definition, unless you want to argue that it is deterministic which nucleotides they will strike.
Good point Ashen.
Many consider radiation influences and radioactive decay to be the ultimate random number generator and small radioactive sources are used for exactly that.
http://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/
As for BrianT's semantic silliness, I think all above have dealt with it quite well.
Cheers
Mike, thanks. I completely forgot thet Brian thinks evolution is goal directed, directed by the hand of God. Therefore, he believes, that variation is not random at all but directed by God.
Now I understand where he was coming from. Truly silly, but I now understand his point nevertheless.
Ron
Yup-like Jimmy Swaggart said-"If God didn't want them sheared, he wouldn't have made them sheep".
I think we are getting into semantics at this point-i.e. the relevant definition of "random"-here is the Wiki page for Hidden variable theories which provides a background to thinking in this area http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_variable_theory
Darwinian,
I'm certainly not qualified to defend some school of Darwinian thought over another, nor am I inclined to.
However, I have heard and read enough to know that the scientific community hardly presents a unified front on Darwinism. In fact, there's some pretty fractious and passionate debate that goes on between Darwinists, as evidenced by this very thread and the Science Network lecture series I linked to earlier.
And what about this quote from a recent NY Times column:
How is it that an aesthetic feature (beauty?) can be preserved from generation to generation that, as Judson points out, is "useless for or even detrimental to survival"?
This hardly lends credence to the "survivial of the fittest" faction of Darwinism.
DS, survival of the fittest not only means the most fit for survival but also the most fit for procreation. After all, you cannot procreate unless you survive, and you can have no offspring unless you procreate. You seem to think these are two different things. No, to survive means to survive to procreate and to procreate means to have more offspring who survives. The "fittest" means, among other things, the ones who are the most fit to have the most offspring. The longest tail fathers among birds of paradise, or the most beautiful tail feathers of male peacocks, means these birds are the most fittest to reproduce.
You are thinking too narrowly. Think "the most offspring who survives". That is the fittest. If that means bulky tail fathers, then so be it. The greater chance of being caught by a predator is more than offset by the chance of having more offspring. That is what "the fittest" means.
Ron P.
"No, to survive means to survive to procreate and to procreate means to have more offspring who survives. The "fittest" means, among other things, the ones who are the most fit to have the most offspring. "
Why do we have still homosexuals in society?
What does that have to do with the thread being discussed? Absolutely nothing!
Homosexuality is caused, according to many who study the subject, by the prenatal environment. (In the womb.) It is not genetic. Therefore it has nothing to do with evolution or natural selection.
Ron P.
My bad. I thought I had heard there was a genetic setting there. But I'll take your word for it. One sure does get confused these days with all this "meme-based" lamarckianism and such. What do you think of that?
I had no idea that Lamarckianism was "meme-based". Anyway neo-Darwinism clearly explains why Lamarckianism, the inheritance of learned or acquired characteristics, is impossible.
Ron P.
So Lamarckianism is really malarky-ianism?
Friedman goes on to identify a combination of one or more of the following as possibly contributing to "homosexuality":
1) prenatal endocrinology
2) genetics
3) environment
DS
I second your post. As I see things, it all goes back to the well-known bell curve (or raised cosine, for the geeks). IMNSVHO, there is one woman who is ultimately feminine and one man who is equally masculine. They exist at the very edges of the curve. The rest of us are somewhere in between.
Discussions of homosexuality tend to take on a binary (trinary?) component,(with religious overtones) when in reality it is a continuum. My ex was self-conscious because she had some serious, but slender, pipes on her. I aver that she was all woman, regardless.
I'd like to add to your point 3. There are a number of synthetic compounds that have been produced and are now widespread in the biosphere that mimic hormones, particularly estrogens. This can conflate your points 1 and 3, with unpredictable results. We operate with impunity and ignore any potential consequences.
As has been said before, mother nature bats last.
Cheers
So, is Dawkins still right? -- I haven't been keeping up.
According to him (in The Selfish Gene) selection -- differential reproductive success -- takes place at the gene level, not at the level of individuals. This made sense to me when I read it, assuming the gene theory of inheritance of traits is correct.
Therefore (and leaving aside the continuum model for a moment - it doesn't change the argument), it could well be possible for a gene that is sometimes expressed as homosexuality to enhance other traits that increase reproductive success of the (non-homosexual) individuals carrying the gene. (For example, a brother helping to support his sisters' offspring.) So the gene could rise in frequency until it is present in some 'stable' fraction of the population.
Homosexuality is not a counterexample to natural selection, whether or not it has genetic causes (and as you say, it both does and doesn't).
Re Ayn Rand and other lunatic theories of social structure: Someone -- Bertrand Russell? -- observed that we are moral to the extent that we do not behave according to the dictates of natural selection. Humans have the power of rational control over their behaviour.
As a member of the sub-species Homo eroticus myself, I've always been intrigued by this theory, that homosexuality (at least in males) is a "by-product" of some gene that offers reproductive success for women.
Dean Hamer has written some great books about this: a gene on the X chromosome, which men get from their mothers, has been implicated in homosexual attraction in males.
His research also debunks the Kinsey/Freud "continuum" model: He had a hell of a time finding "bisexual" men for his research, and he found the percentage of truly "homosexual" men to be very small. This accords with personal experience: gay men are rare birds; bi men are even rarer. There's no "bell curve" here; it looks like less that 5% of men are homosexual, and perhaps even less are bi. The 10% turns out to be a myth.
By-product, genetic or not, it matters not a wit to me. Heath Ledger still looks fine in a cowboy hat.
1/4 of 1/4 = 1/16 = 6.25%
Lots (millions?) of people are taking what cash they have left and desperately getting back into the market right now under the premise that of course there will be another recovery. They may get to lose what little is left of their ass. However, in a resource constrained world, it might make sense to get into oil and other commodities. Can a permanent recession/despression keep these from rising? That seems to be the multi billion dollar question.
Exactly!
If the price of natural gas is still hovering around $3.75 per MCF this time next year, or God forbid even lower, the price of many a domestic oil and gas producer might be trading in the same $1 to $3 per share range that some of the big banks trade today, and a few of them may already have gone the way of Lehman and Merril.
Its a realy good idea to invest but it would be wise to invest in someting inherenty productive, it ought to be possible to do that since numerous companies and services would be in demand even in a severe economical crash. That would add to the real economy making any outcome of this mess a better one.
That is the question!
I'm getting into oil as we speak. I see it as a short to medium term 'investment' (gamble, bet). Malaysia and Australian oil co's. I only have a couple thousand bucks, if I lose it I'll just go surf, close to home.
I think companies with reserves and those who service them will do well in the medium term future.
Anyone else?
A collapse would fracture the world and the natural allies would be the parts that can keep the most trade going while the worst run parts would destruct their own demand, eg their ability to pay.
That would make resources available and already existing technical knowledge plus resources plus basically a darwinistic selection for good corporate and national management would give an economical rebound in the well managed parts that keep working and trading.
But it would sure suck to live in a country that flunks this.
If more countries invests and competes in a constructive and sustainable manner we get a bigger pie in the next round of growth and it is also worthwile with advancing technology and sustainable culture.
The situation turns uglier if manny countries chooses militarised competition. Then we get a brutal selection preassure for productive management while massive ammounts of resources are destroied and that can kill manny people via secondary effects and it also becomes harder to work for sustainability.
This do not make me a dove, I would very much like to have a stronger military defence in Sweden and a larger ability to help our neighbours and friends defend themselves. But that is an insurance and not a main tactic, I would not like to have a militarization such as the one we had in the 50:s and 60:s. We dont need a military that can threathen and concquer neighbours, its more productive to not become an easy victim and then have more resurces left to trade with and thus help more neighbours.
Here is what Richard Heinberg has to say in Richard Heinberg: Timing referenced above.
I think he's got it about right. Times up.
Of all these things happening there is only one that can prevent complete economic recovery: peak oil. On the longer term peak gas and peak water will play its role.
I couldn't agree more.
And what I had hoped for is that the United States would lead that recovery, not only for selfish reasons, but also for reasons of national pride.
But given recent events, combined with a flurry of recent reading and study on my part, I'm becoming more and more convinced that the U.S. just isn't up to the task:
In the sense that there was the Renaissance after the Dark Ages?
:)
Cheers
Does anyone have this type of information (graphs)?
What "the industry" thought would be discovered/produced/consumed 10 years ago and what was actually discovered/produced/consumed over the last 10 years. I realize that CERA now has the recession as a scapegoat for why we will never reach that potential, but I am trying to frame an argument and I am hoping this data would show what the Cornucopians believed would be the current situation 10 years ago and what actually came to be.
One other data point. Does anyone have numbers on how much money was spent by the oil industry from 2005 to now and the rate/production increase (flat) as opposed to how much money was spent from 1998 to 2005 and the rate/production increase?
China hydro to sell carbon credits.
You'd think low carbon energy would be a reward in itself. For example importers of your goods may not put a carbon tariff on them because of reduced pollution. But no, according to the UN climate agency you can sell that carbon 'saving' to someone else and get a double benefit. The result is emissions then increase because the increased hydro allows a parallel increase in coal burning. Funny how things don't seem to get better.
This is a wonderful accounting trick. If you walk down the street without a cent in your pocket you might find some free food in a dumpster. But voila that entitles someone else to a free coke and a hamburger because you've 'saved' that expenditure.
The other stupid idea the UN climate agency promotes is that more populous countries are entitled to greater emissions. First I'd ask if those countries are entitled to such large populations. The UN is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
No April 3 2009 bank failures so far.