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DrumBeat: November 9, 2006
Posted by threadbot on November 9, 2006 - 9:20am
House Energy Chief's Loss Opens Door for Energy Policy Shift
With the ouster by California voters of U.S. House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., energy policy changes are expected next year when Democrats control the House of Representatives.Analysts are already predicting that a Democrat-controlled House will put energy companies on the defensive as lawmakers seek to tax oil companies' profits while boosting renewable energy, climate change and energy efficiency policies. Large energy company stocks, particularly Big Oil, appeared unaffected, however.
UN: Climate change threatens agricultural crisis
Immediate steps are needed to avert a potential catastrophe as climate change dries up water resources in drought affected areas, hitting poor farmers, a United Nations report said on Thursday.The vast majority of the world's malnourished people, estimated at about 830 million people, are small farmers, herders and farm laborers, pointing to devastating effects from global warning and requiring a tripling of yearly farming aid to poor countries.
"Climate change threatens to intensify water insecurity on an unparalleled scale," the annual U.N. Human Development Report said.
Polar ice cores show "bipolar seesaw" climate link
Comparison with cores from Greenland proves a strong north-south link and also highlights the role of the meridional overturning circulation (MOC) -- the so-called Atlantic Conveyor -- in the process of heat transfer."It is really astounding how systematic this process worked also for smaller temperature changes in the Antarctic," said team leader Hubertus Fischer from the Alfred-Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany.
Kuwait to double oil refinery upgrade plan
Kuwait Petroleum Corp. (KPC) is set to add 110,000 to 150,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude processing capacity at its existing refineries by 2012, nearly double its initial upgrade plan, a company official said on Thursday.
China, Egypt reach nuclear energy agreement
BEIJING (AFP) - China and Egypt agreed to co-operate on the peaceful use of nuclear energy, state media said, in a development that could rile the United States, a traditional Cairo ally.
Clean energy is 'cost effective'
Using cleaner and more efficient energy not only helps the environment but also makes economic sense, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Saudi Aramco Sr. Vice President discusses energy market volatility, energy security
In a speech yesterday addressed to the Korean Forum for Progress, an influential business group, Abdulaziz F. Al-Khayyal, Saudi Aramco's Senior Vice President of Refining, Marketing and International, offered his insights into some of the forces contributing to global energy market volatility, as well as addressing how best to approach the issue of energy security.
The 'dark matter' of American politics
The "dark matter" of American politics is the physical world--the climate, the air, the water, the minerals, the energy resources--upon which all of our political, social, cultural and economic life depend. The state of our physical world exerts a kind of hidden gravitational pull on the important issues of the day. And yet, to listen to the rhetoric of the most recent election campaign, you would conclude that the ecological underpinnings of our civilization are in such good condition that they require virtually no attention.
The Peak Oil Crisis: Exxon & Peak Oil
Every now and again, a senior oil company executive speaks optimistically to some august gathering about all the oil that is left. This time the honor fell to Stephen Pryor, president of ExxonMobil Refining. Speaking to a conference in Houston, Mr. Pryor stridently asserted that "energy resources are adequate to sustain growth— we are not peak oil people."
India: Huge oil, gas reserves lie untapped
According to him, scientific advancements are required in four broader technology areas which include source rock identification, based on regional geological studies, trap mapping based on seismic technology, seal mapping based on regional picture and analogs and reservoir quantification based on attribute mapping to successfully tap the country's estimated oil shale of 2.6 trillion barbells of recoverable oil which, according to him, is equal to the world's proven oil reserves.
Byron W. King - 2006 Boston ASPO: Peak Oil
Editor Greg likes to call me the Agora Financial "Peak Oil correspondent." That is just fine with me. I have been a "Peak Oil guy" for something like 30 years, starting with meeting the legendary "father of Peak Oil," M. King Hubbert, when he gave a rather poorly attended talk at Harvard back in 1977.
Bush’s Chernobyl economy; hard times are on the way
The only thing keeping the economy from collapsing entirely is the sudden drop in oil prices that “conveniently” coincided with the midterm balloting.This won’t last. According to industry analyst Matthew Simmons the world production of oil may have already peaked, setting the stage for a leveling-off period before the inevitable decline. Simmons has data to show that “world supply of oil has declined to 83.98 million barrels per day in the second quarter after hitting 84.35 million bpd in the forth quarter of 2005.” Oil production is going backwards not forwards.
Saudi Aramco executes integrated materials supply plan
The vice president noted that growth in developing nations such as China and India is being mirrored by growth in Arabian Gulf countries, due to the rise in demand for energy. This has led to unprecedented levels of demand for equipment and raw materials essential to Saudi Aramco as it engages in the largest expansion program in its history, and enormous challenges in reserving materials, manufacturing capacity, on-time material delivery and containing costs.
Netherlands Moves to Make Biofuels use Mandatory
TAIYUAN -- North China's Shanxi Province, the country's biggest coal-producing base, will close 900 more coal mines by June 2008 amid concerns over safety, environmental protection and resource conservation.
Moscow: Winter Energy Crunch Looming
Built on Lenin's order in 1920, the Shatura station survives -- like the rest of the electricity sector -- on aging turbines that suffer from a severe lack of investment. And, like most of the country's power stations, Shatura runs on gas -- a precious commodity that state-run Gazprom is increasingly supplying abroad even as customers at home again face the threat of shortfalls this winter.
"It's the first time in the history of Ontario that I've ever heard the destruction of 136,0000 manufacturing jobs described as an energy-efficiency, energy-conservation program," [NDP Leader Howard] Hampton said. "If you shut down the rest of the paper industry -- and the McGuinty government's well on the way -- you'll reduce electricity consumption by another 1,000 megawatts."
Murmansk's oil and metals bonanza
Up to a quarter of the world's oil and gas reserves are also said to lie dormant in this Arctic wilderness, just waiting to be extracted and fed to the energy-hungry global markets.
Iraq: Kurdish Oil Law Poses Problem For Baghdad
"The Kurds have submitted a draft petroleum act to be adopted that gives them the right to control oil, regardless of the government in Baghdad. The Oil Ministry has submitted another completely different draft that gives the authority to the ministry, not regions. It's the main issue of the conflict: oil and Kurds."
China has rented out a third of the storage space at its first strategic oil reserve to state-run refiner Sinopec, reinforcing fears that Beijing may use its emergency stocks more readily than Western nations.
Energy programs around the globe: Many countries are implementing various programs to improve energy efficiency.
Wave-powered 'ducks' could purify seawater
Ocean waves could provide an energy-efficient way to desalinate seawater, say UK researchers. While conventional purification plants have high energy demands, the rocking motion of floating buoys could be used to drive a pump system for desalination.
Alternative Energy and Clean Technology: A Changing Climate
Potluck puts focus on local food
Susan Ornelas is inviting you to the potluck she is helping organize, but don't bring any chocolate, bread or mustard.The potluck, co-sponsored by Ornelas' Peak Oil Action Group and the Humboldt State University Campus Center for Appropriate Technology, aims to showcase foods grown and produced within 250 miles of Arcata.
Oil above $60, supported by OPEC and U.S. stocks draw
Oil rose almost a dollar to more than $60 a barrel on Thursday, supported by OPEC supply cuts and a drop in fuel stockpiles in top oil consumer the United States.OPEC is lowering output and some members have said the group may cut supply further in December. The cutback comes as oil demand is nearing its seasonal peak in the northern hemisphere winter.
Blackout puts outdated power grid in spotlight
European regulators have launched an enquiry over the power cut that briefly left 10 million people in the dark last week-end. But the outing also raised questions about the grid's ability to cope with the addition of renewable energy sources.
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Get that, it is extremely dangerous not to consider the other vast reserves located outside the Middle East. Then at the bottom of the page they provide a link that tells us what the world' real reserves really are. They have 397.6 billion barrels in North America, 185.5 billion barrels in South America and 423.8 billion barrels in Europe and the Former USSR.
So sleep well tonight folks, the world is awash in oil. And remember, it is extremely dangerous not to consider these vast reserves when planning for the future.
Ron Patterson
TRUTH <---------------------------->UNTRUTH
1. World awash in oil<---------------->1. Global Warming is
mankind's fault
2. World awash in terrorists<------------>2. Drunk drivers kill
more innocent civilians
3. Our Econmy is "strong"<------------>3. Housing bubble about to
burst
4. ????
Many TOD readers are by this time probably familiar with my grim might-makes-right calculus regarding geopolitical developments in their relation to energy. This calculus is based on the primacy of raw power in determining events of human history (most especially the raw military power held by the United States).
Here is the controversial claim I would like to discuss: I assert that this calculus is predicated upon a far more realistic assessment of human nature than that adopted by most people who reject religion. The faith that many Peak Oilers who are hopeful for the future of humanity place in human nature is a blind faith. It is itself a form of unfounded religious belief that is in fact far less rationally defensible than traditional Judeo-Christian religious beliefs that many posters here reject.
Now how are you different?
I had to laugh at your post. Mostly because you just summed up about 2 dozen books (including mine) and an equal number of websites (including mine) in two sentences.
When I used to give talks I would finish with a joke about the irony of the talk itself. The fact that a group of highly educated people with access to more information than all previous generations combined needed me to tell them that in regards to oil:
A) yeah, we're running the f--k out. . .
and
B) Bush invaded Iraq to grab what's left
. . . is to me sort of funny. Only in a culture as dumbed down as ours could somebody like me earn a living from pointing out what should be obvious!
Why do you use the word "calculus"? What has that to do with human nature?
At any rate I have been a student of human nature for many years and have very strong feelings on the subject. However before I can debate your position I must have a better handle on exactly what your position is.
Ron Patterson
matt
Humans are generally good when they have a full stomach, clothes on their back and a roof over their head. Have you ever observed a few million people in sheer desperation? Were you in Argentina in 2001?
People, in times of severe crisis, behave entirely different than they do in times of plenty. One does not have to be a psychologist to figure this out. All one must do is study history.
Ron Patterson
Blind faith is thinking we will overcome X via technology that hasn't been invented because we must.
I am saying this is not a blind faith scenario, thats all.
ORM,
This is exactly what is happening right now in Iraq. BUsh is killing Iraqis so Halliburton and friends can steal their oil and then slosh the money they make around the private accounts of their friends. =)
Will post article if I am able to find it again.
However I came accross this interesting article;
General Adaption Syndrome
(cf. Selye, 1974)
...<align="middle">
Link Punctuation Marks!!
Odds are you wouldn't if die-off proceeded too fast. But don't be glum. If you're young enough you'll probably get to witness the last stomach wrenching gyrations of a whole planet-wide species in overshoot (complete with its own version of the "undulating plateau") before you're done down here, if that graph plays out.
Yes. This should not be a surprise that the above graph follows a bell-shaped curve as apparently Hubbert adapted the basis for his model from ones pre-exisiting and proved in the life sciences.
I do realize that it would be a completely separate calculation than the orginal HL for oil (and probably far more complex), but not wrong as such.
But is any resource in the end truly renewable? And even if it could be argued otherwise are not animal populations ultimately constrained by Liebig's law of the minimum? I think this is what this graph is implying. In our case one could argue that oil "is" that scarcest resource.
Sorry, animal populations should just read populations.
Oilrig Medic says
"There are far more mothers than murderers."
And huge numbers of mothers are murderers.
It isn't that the pregancy is 'unplanned' for surely they are not so stupid as to believe that, but desire to turn a blind eye to the facts of reproduction. Rather its that the pregnancy is inconvient or unwanted.
The populace just spoke in many ballot initiatives regarding abortion and they do not wish bans on such. This is obvious judging from the vote.
Again ,IMO ,potential 'mothers' who seek to abort are destroying life and are there for murderers with knowledge and planning a forethought.
Its that ole moral(possibly religious) attitude vs our new bright and shiny 'gimme it now and I don't want anything holding me up' attitude of this generation and that which has brought us close to the brink of doom.
Before someone objects ...there is hardly a single female who would allow any male to force her into an abortion , not with the current outstanding feminine rights that exist.
All that said I agree with Philreg as to the current philosophies (none actually but mass consumerism,ego and greed) that inhabit our land.
I chose the path of moral and spiritual belief. This is not the same as a church-going , diehard , Christian of the 'Vast Right Wing' conspiracy nor of 'The Base'.
To me its personal and how I live.
They chose there's freely. So do I.
airdale--
not meaning to hijack the thread,
just replying to what someone said,
Airdale,
While a huge number of mothers may decide to have abortions (a decision I disagree with but not mine to decide) I don't think a huge PERCENTAGE of mothers are doing so. Seriously the media pounds bad things into our brains all day long terrorism, train wrecks, democrats taking over congress. There is never live helicopter coverge of a boy helping an old woman across the street. I think if the media were "Fair and Balanced" LOL with positive and negative coverage we would have more faith in people.
matt
The effect of that action yeilds what? And how many times can that action happen?
The effect of you being shot and the shooting taking your food is? How many times can that happen?
The negitive actions can result in death. The positive actions result in, well another day of positive.
The focus on the negative is because of the outcomes.
I am not talking about the reason for the coverage but the effect. Sex and violence sell, nobody would tune in for little boys helping old ladies across the street except old ladies and they are not the demographic with the most money. My point is the media has brow beaten us to live in fear.
matt
And my point is the follow-on effects of violence is WHY.
The end of cheap energy will result in people reacting violently.
Feel free to show how the end of cheap energy will have no economic effects. Feel free to show how collapsing economies don't result in more violence. Feel free to show that man has no histroy of figthing over resources.
The "doomers" have pointed to the past as proof. The 'non-doomers' point to 'advances', yet when asked how global climet change, endpoint of Phosperous in 130 years (per USGS), ocean fish stock collapse, prions in the food chain, man-made toxins in the food change AND the end of cheap energy are going to be 'solved' by 'advances'... it is only the voices of the 'doomers' that remain,
So come on, all you 'positive people' - whats your solution to the abouve things 'advances will solve'?
Really? Huh. Care to show your source?
Because the USGS source says 60 to 130 years of mineable resouce. http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1475-2743.2005.tb00413.x
Ocean fish stocks can be mitigated responsible fishery management
Interesting position. Given the fishing regulations that are in place to do just that and yet the stock are crashing, excatly HOW is 'more regulation' going to help?
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.fisheries.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/image/849/histo rical2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.fisheries.nsw.gov.au/threatened_species/general/species/black_co d_guide&h=282&w=400&sz=32&hl=en&start=6&tbnid=B_wV64r-O7qgUM:&tbnh=87&am p;tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dhistoric%2Blarge%2Bcod%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DN
as well as by iron fertilization
Got proof of this outcome? A model?
Prions are in individual links of the food chain and herds can be slaughtered. Not a big threat
Huh. Interesting view. Yet, where are these 'slaughtered animals' fed? Or ones that are just simple 'downer' animals?
If it such a non-issue, as you claim, why can't creekstone farms test each of their slaughtered animals?
http://www.organicconsumers.org/2006/article_1110.cfm
http://www.mad-cow.org/
Phosphorus is common. It is currently used wastefully and there are many ways to recover it.
There are laws in place for lots of things that does not translate into proper management. Less fishermen less boats less waters and rotating waters for fishing as well as more studies on the fisheries.
Fish breed if one male and one female exist they can come back given the right situation.
There are multiple models for nutrient rich waters increasing plankton, then krill and so on google it or read a book.
Prions are self replicating proteins acting like viri but technically not they don't have nucleic acids. If you kill a sick animal and bury or incinerate it it is gone. If you grind it up and feed it to a same level herbivore you spread it. Prions occur naturally in 1/100,000-1,000,000 mammals. It is the bad practices of the meat industry that propogate it. Who cares if they test their animals? We need to not feed herbivores other herbivores.
Non issue.
The only thing on your list that is of real concern is climate change. We have a way to change but not the will at the moment.
So that is the rebuttal to the USGS's 60 to 130 year limit.
Recovery - like peeing in a cup?
Less fishermen less boats less waters
And yet, how will THAT happen? Wioll that be like the recovery of P in Pee?
There are multiple models for nutrient rich waters increasing plankton, then krill and so on
And the models I've seen show the other bits in the water being consumed, resulting in a crash laster or worst-case inability for reproduction later.
But feel free to show the models that don't result.
It is the bad practices of the meat industry that propogate it.
And yet, they keep doing it. Now, how will this activity be stopped in the myitical future of 'progress'
If it is such a 'non-issue' then why isn't it being done?
Who cares if they test their animals?
And yet the USDA has stopped them.
Again, you state a buch of 'could be's' - yet I've not seen one of the 'could be's' be addressed in the now, or how the present efforts to address an effect have failed.
Why are you beliving that victory will be snatched from the jaws of failure? Why are the humans of the future going to be better at these issues than the humans of the now who have cheap energy?
What are you not getting about prions? They are not contagious, and all we need to stop their spread is kill the herd and not feed it to another herbivore. If you make catfish feed out of it the prion does not jump.
Seriously smallpox or birdflu are way more of a threat and they are still minimal.
I posted a link above to phosphorous and yes you can get it from urine as well as byproducts of the meat industry.
I spoke with my bro n law a geologist with the USGS and he agrees with me that there is plenty of phosphorous to gow around the question is at what price. Given this is an appeal to authority but no more than yours.
I will post a study on the ocean fertilizer on tommorrows drumbeat I need to leave now to go to dinner.
The less fishermen less boats less legal fishing waters. Be aggressive. Tax ocean products fund the coast guard and hatcheries. Form treaties and enforce them. Sink boats.
Climate change may be out of our control as a nation but the fisheries are not.
http://www.nal.usda.gov/awic/news/bse/cristse.htm
BSE spread from the United Kingdom into Western Europe despite slaughter of infected animals, control of live animal movements, and mandated restrictions on animal feeding practices.Doesn't seem as simple as slaughter of infected animals and feed control.
On the fish-feed claim, do you have a link for the research on that?
And again I ask - given controls already installed and their failure... how in the new 'happy' future will failure not be the option? The willingness of one human to screw over many others for the one human to gain an advantage is well documented.
There is your link on the prions, mammalian only.
Great page if you are interested in this. Again you are way more likely to die of many other things. This is like asbestos, an industry existed and consequences were found out after people got sick.
Anyway had some argentinian beef for dinner very good free range healthy cow...yum.
I agree with you fisheries are a problem, their management needs an overhaul.
I agree climate change is a problem. Plant some trees and conserve in your own household. Write your congressperson.
matt
This is not true for birds-- the passenger pigeon went extinct after its population fell below a critical level and breeding fell off until extinction, not because the last birds were killed-- and I doubt it is true in many species where similar such critical population sizes have to exist for viable propogation of the species.
"1Climate change we have the technology Solar wind nuke to reverse this process as well as planting a bunch (billions and billions) of trees."
While we theoretically have some technological approaches, the items you mention show any signs of coming on line anywhere near in time on a scale large enought to preclude climate change, which is already well underway. Nuclear is not necessarily carbon neutral, by the way, if you look at the whole cycle.
"2. Phosperous, I don't know what we'll do about phosperous but maybe we could substitute phosphorus which there is quite a bit of in the earths crust all the way to the mantle. As it becomes more expensive mining it will become more economical."
This is a religious belief. The Invisible Hand will take care of everything. What an economistic crock of shit. The atmosphere is 80% nitrogen, so what. It's the form that the element is in that makes it useful for plant growth. And that takes energy, lots of energy.
"3. Ocean fish stocks can be mitigated responsible fishery management as well as by iron fertilization, which will also help the CO2 levels."
There is no sign whatsoever of responsible fishery management coming along. Many fisheries are already totally collapsed, and the Tragedy of the Commons continues to unfold in the oceans. Iron fertilization is a wildcard. We do not understand marine ecosystems (nor any others) enough to know what the real outcome would be, much less the unintended consequences. This is a "solution" proposed by engineers, not by ecologists.
"4. Prions are in individual links of the food chain and herds can be slaughtered. Not a big threat. Toxins....if we quit burning fossil fuels and acomplish 1 this problem will be largely solved."
Prions are not a problem on par with climate change and ocean ecosystem collapse, but whatever.
"5. Cheap energy? when we run out of coal and thorium and uranium and wind and solar and hydro were f@#$@#d. "
Yes, thorium is just lying around all over the place, and we have a clue how to make a working commercial reactor out of it. Not.
Your claims really are simple assertions, and come across like some sort of faith statement. I mean, the solar energy flux that reaches Earth is immense, and could provide as much energy as anyone could want. But it's diffuse, and not easy to harness. It's not exactly in our pocket.
Not saying that nothing can be done, but glib assertion of the inevitability of techno-fixes is not particularly informative.
- sgage
read all my posts in this thread I am replying to what eric is stating with real solutions that exist today. Our problem is policies not technologies. Tax the crap out of fossil fuels and fund alternatives.
Responsible fishery management is not technology it is policy. Technology is increasing in floating fish farms.
I am not glibly asserting anything. I believe climate change is real but how can you say "well on the way" we have had a half of a degree rise. If we start now converting and conserving there things should be OK (NOTE: this depends on policy.)
Eric threw out a bunch of what ifs I am contesting and I said climate change is the only real threat.
Meanwhile my belief as the price of phosphorous goes up the economy of mining becomes better is not a religous belief. Would you sift a ton of sand for thirty copper BB's? How about gold, one man could sift a ton of sand in a day the current price of copper would not make sense but gold sure. Phosphorus is everywhere and it is recoverable.
Also if I am a cornucopian pollyanna why did I spend the past six months paying off my parents house and putting solar panels on it? Why did I sell my truck and move to Brasil? (besides my wife) I am preparing for a future lifestyle different than the one I was raised in. I have a large garden here with a half meter of topsoil with a three meter wall around it, this fall (march) I am put a solar setup on this roof.
Just because I don't buy into mad max/dieoff doesn't make me a cornucopian.
matt
I don't buy into that either. My point was simply that your various refutations of various points were on the very, very optimistic side.
You indeed glibly asserted a lot of things, which, if you ran some numbers, you might be less chipper about. It comes across as whistling past the graveyard.
Again, I am NOT saying there is nothing to be done, nor am I saying that technology has no role in addressing our predicament.
In fact, you get close to my point with this comment:
"Responsible fishery management is not technology it is policy."
This is precisely my point. The technology is extremely simple - make large areas of the ocean off limits to fishing, period. It ain't gonna happen. Look up "tragedy of the commons". The policy is no where near forthcoming, much less some ability to enforce it. The gulf between theoretically physically and biologically possible and what we might choose to do as a global polity is enormous.
This is why I labeled your posting "pollyannish". I labeled your posting cornucopian for your apparent belief that the market system can make something from nothing, in the absence of energy. You need to run some numbers, that's all.
In simple terms, the "problem" is not technological. It is something else. It's about how we fundamentally approach our relationship to finite resources of all kinds...
- Steve
But, what does anyones religeous beliefs on abortion have to do with peak oil? By kidnapping this thread you discourage many serious folks from being introduced to the concept and therefore do a diservice to TOD
You have also expressed a belief that one group of religious/genetic people have superior genetics to others without any more 'proof' than what you have 'observed' with all your training as an IBM programmer.
After her years as a nurse, she has seen too many situations where she now believes that it was obvious that a pregnancy should have been terminated but was not. Many of these children suffer terrible abuse or disease or deformity, and then die very young after a short and brutal existence.
My wife and I openly adopted two children. We have nurtured the relationship between birthmothers and children so that they will always be close. These birth mothers have gone on for more education and marriage in both cases, and have children by their marriages. The kids know each other.
My feeling is that if one wants to prevent abortion, the law is a lousy way to do so. The way we live will either give women options and control over their lives or will be brutal and punitive toward women. Most "pro-lifers" do not enter into adoption, let alone open adoption so that young birthmothers are not punished.
Our youngest child's birthmom had just turned 15 when she gave birth to him. She was a beautiful young woman, but too young to parent by herself. We can create better options, but mostly we don't think about it that way.
If I may challenge your statement by asking you to define 'good'. I guess I would challenge the idea that as long as one is not a murderer then one is good. I think we are all screwed up and bad. Oh sure, we may not murder, but do we get angry driving down the road when someone cuts us off? Do we lie? Do we lust after someone or something?
Thanks, :)
Shawn
Donnie: Ling Ling finds a wallet on the ground filled with money. She takes the wallet to the address on the driver's license but keeps the money inside the wallet.
[Scoffs]
Donnie: I-I'm sorry Mrs. Farmer. I don't get this.
Donnie: Life isn't that simple. I mean who cares if Ling Ling returns the wallet and keeps the money? It has nothing to do with either fear or love.
Kitty Farmer: Fear and love are the deepest of human emotions.
Donnie: Okay. But you're not listening to me. There are other things that need to be taken into account here. Like the whole spectrum of human emotion. You can't just lump everything into these two categories and then just deny everything else!
Shawn I agree with you, I was using murderers vs mothers because they maybe represent ends of the spectrum better than road rage and smiles. Human nature is complex but beautiful.
matt
I'm not clear what you mean by humans here if you are describing individual humans, then I would agree with you however there are those early psychological studies where subjects were ordered to administer electrical shocks to a 'patient'(really an actor). Most of the subjects would follow the orders of the person in charge of the study, administering increasingly large shocks, up into the lethal range, simply because they were ordered to do so. I am going to disregard this for the moment because I want to believe that humans are generally good.
If however, you are describing large collectives of humans, i.e. society, I must strongly disagree with you. Humans as a whole are wasteful, callous, destructive, etc. Think about things like war, famine, genocide, and religion. If humans as a whole were generally good I don't think these things would be as prevalent as they are currently.
Religion. I think of all the horrible things buddism and the ways of the Inuit indians have caused. I also think of the plot jesus and his disciples hatched on how his teachings could cause suffering world wide? Individuals abuse power yes but more often than not people are good.
Also let me bring up the point, that without an absolute being, God, where does one get 'right' or 'wrong'? How can one say Hitler was wrong? Sure it may not be beneficial to others if one murders, but how can that person be called evil?
Look up the word evil. There is a picture of a german guy with a little mustache next to richard simmons, thats hitler. Seriously you can get as deep as you want and question what is "right" and "wrong" but pretty much everybody would fear being murdered and not want to be murdered. In addition it has taboos in almost all cultures except in wartime when it is suddenly ok. Except when soldiers do kill it screws up their heads and damages them emotionally because it is a horrible personal act.
Hitler was evil and sick.
Same place you get it without an absolute being.
Same place you get it with an absolute being.
Neither is "rationally defensible."
I'm a "peak oiler" who does not have faith in either a "hopeful...future" nor in the Judeo-Christian superstitions which have justified slaughter for so many centuries.
http://nobeliefs.com/beliefs.htm
Steven Pinker made that "arc" in The Blank Slate, and continues it here in his review of George Lakoff's new book "Whose Freedom?"
In another article, Geogre Lakoff repsonds
IMO those guys show how it should be done. They each acknowledge that their position is based on certain starting points, and that should those starting points be disproved, their conclusions would have to change as well.
It's rational as long as you keep that self-awareness and flexibility. As soon as you "lock down" to a single view of human nature, you've lost any chance of "rational" thought, let alone discussion.
Gasp! Someone with an open mind!
I'd say many on this community are more middling to doomer. I would love to swing left into the optomistic-to middle zone but common sense always seems to win over. History repaets and mankind doesn't seem to learn by it's mistakes and so I personally remain middle to doom.
By that rational I am with you and say that I have no faith in the future!
Marco (may not have understood what you said!!)
If anything, I'd say you have an unrealistic faith in modern military technology.
I was raised in right-wing American Christian fundamentalism. I think that fundamentalism relied on keeping people in the role of children with parwental figures interpreting the Bible for them and instructing them in terms of how to understand the universe and rspond to it.
The dominant strain of american fundamentalism has lately melded together a particular kind of Zionist zeal, the modern nation-state of Israel, and the "Judeo-Christian" USA as God's special chosen instrument of power in this time. The US military is thus backed by the ancient war-god of the Old Testament who is often seen as "God the Father" of the Christian Trinity.
Given some version of the premises I've outlined above, it is possible to see the US military as the army of God, put in place to rid the world of evildoers -- the Godless Chinese, Vladimir Putin, and especially (currently most in vogue in US propaganda) Islamofascism.
If one does not accept the Script of the dominant form of American Christian fundamentalism in some form, then I think it is easier to understand that at this point no one will win any war. The weapons are too powerful and diffuse, and our war technology carries with it unwanted consequences which could easily render the world too toxic for anyone to really claim victory. Thee are other reasons why war is osbsolete (not that some won't try it) but I think the diffusion of various weaponry around the world is a key reason for this.
It is pretty easy to obliterate countries, etc., if the correct types of attitudes prevail among both the elites and masses in the country that holds military sway. All it takes is one well-protected aircraft carrier battle group, of which the United States has at least a dozen. Not many countries possess the capability of imperiling even one such battle group, let alone several at the same time.
I readily admit that we are currently far from that point of having the necessary attitudes for this prevailing here in the US, but I also think that a relentless drift in that direction is unmistakeable. Over the next few decades, I think we may very well get there.
Your point that in the long run such a policy of ruthlessness would fail to achieve the ends in view is also granted. But in the short-to-medium term, it might work quite well under certain conditions. In any event, the important point is not whether such a policy will ACTUALLY work, but whether the elites and masses BELIEVE that it MIGHT work. Peak Oil may push a critical mass of both into that belief here in the US - especially if encroaching fascism succeeds in drowning out dissent.
My genuine, card-carrying, right-of-Reagan, 100% atheist dad has long advocated the use of neutron bombs on the entire Middle East. Get rid of Israel and the Palestinians. And the Saudis, Iranians, Iraqis, etc. Leave the oil intact. (Or so he believes.)
My sister is as far left as my dad is right, which adds to the fun.
My mom stays out of it. She won't even say who she voted for. Though she did take me aside once when I was a kid, and tell me that she supported abortion rights. "Your dad's a man, he doesn't understand," she told me. That was the only time I ever heard her talk about politics.
How do you know? We've never done it.
That's the problem with our military technology. So much of it has never been used. I'd hate to rely on it in a "first strike or you're out" situation. An awful lot of it didn't perform as advertised when we did use it, during Gulf War I & II (though you'd never know it watching the American media).
We'd use nukes(and variations of), biological weapons, and chemical weapons. All of which are tried and true in either previous conflicts and multiple studies/tests.
China has the capability according to intelligence reports to wipe the population of Taiwan off the map and leave the infrastructure in place. Neutron Bombs.
We(as in humanity as a whole) have enough nukes to pretty much end the current state of modern civilization and with resources in the state they are, it is highly unlikely we will have the ability to rise up to this level or beyond ever again(or at least for all practicle purposes for us and the next several hundred generations of humans if we even exist at that time).
One of the major reasons there is a push to get serious colonization into space which is self sufficient is because if we blow it down here, that's it. Game over, humanity doesn't go to the stars. We have one shot, and that shot is now, and largely its because never before in the history of our species and probably this planet has a group of beings been capable of utterly changing the face of the planet at the touch of a button. Full scale Global Nuclear War would have amazing consequences on this planet. No I don't think it will be doomsday end of all life kind of things, but my guess is it will certainly rank up there as a mass extinction level event.
And from a conventional stand point, what is going to happen to the small nations of the world when the bigguns decide to exterminate them, say Nazi style? Given enough time the Final Solution would've for all practical purposes wiped out most of the sub-cultures of Europe considered undesirable by the Nazis.
Who is say Russia or China or even Europe and the US wouldn't be desperate enough to do the same to a nation of people they needed to "get out of the way". Currently the only thing holding those nations back is moral, political, and ultimately economic pressure. When that economic pressure can no longer force the moral and political pressure to exist, what do you think is going to happen? Do you honestly believe the Chinese give a care about the Vietnamese. If its in China's interest, why wouldn't they go in and kill every man woman and child?
I think some people on these forums have some pretty naive views about the human capability for violence. Provided recorded history survives, I think the era after WWII up to the first next war to deploy nukes/WMDs, will be considered an extremely restrained era of warfare considering the weapons that exist and are at our disposal.
At no other point in history has man developed weapons innovations only to hold them in reserve. Weapons innovations were always as quickly as possible implemented and used to gain the advantage on the opponent. This era is unlike any before it, because despite the US having the ability to char Vietnam or Korea, we didn't. And despite the Russians having the ability to char Chechnya or Georgia they have not. It may be due to external pressures, but to date the restraint has held.
When the mix of modern technological weapons capability is allowed to be unleashed with barbaric principles to guide them, we will see human suffering the likes of which humanity has never seen.
Yes, but they haven't destroyed any nations. And I'm not convinced they can. Cause a lot of suffering? Sure. Actually kill off an entire nation? Probably not.
Lets Say the target is North Korea.
The area of the target is: 120,410 km2
61% of that is forest or woodland.
Target area = 47000 km2
Lets say that, because we have never sterilised an entire country before, and we don't want to mess it up, our goal will be total immolation.
A 20MT device has an effective radius for producing full thickness burns from thermal radiation of about 40km
Area = 5027 km2
Devices needed=10
I don't think the US would even miss 10 nuclear weapons.
Your quick math would require that the entire population be in a contiguous 50,000 km2 properly shapped to allow for the proper radial distribution of damage. In reality, despite the wooded area, and despite the concentration of people in Pyongyang, the population is pretty dispersed over the entire 120,410 km2. So, to be sure of getting the entire population you would have to cover the full area, not your subset.
The US could send 10, 40, 100 warheads ... it doesn't matter, my point stands.
If I can kill 50% of the people and wipe out 80%+ of its infrastructure is that considered destroyed? Maybe 60/90? 70/95?
If I can do enough damage that the ability of that nation ever rising up again within the near future to its current level, is that considered destroyed?
Give me some solid parameters here, and I can lay out a plan that China, Russia, the EU, or the US could accomplish this by, provided that nation had the will, and lack (or perhaps the absolution)of moral code to go through with it.
The most grisly, and gruesome weapons have not been deployed yet on any sort of scale that would show their true and utterly vicious ugliness.
To say we can't do something of this scale is denial at best, and naive at worst.
the US nuclear missiles were abject faiures.
Iraq. Yugoslavia. Philippines. Argentina. Chile. Panama. Bolivia. Haiti. Cambodia. Every native American nation. That's what comes right to mind. Depending on how much we want to debate the "we" and "destroy", there is an endless number. NOLA, too, but I digress.
Is your metric to kill off every human being? Is it total destruction?
Must destruction be military or will the WTO/GATS/IMF suffice? What about the nations around the world to whom we refuse the "intellectual property" of AIDS vaccines? What about Coke draining the water in India? Bhopal?
Iraq still has the same chair at the UN. But we've killed nearly a million (or two), rewritten their "constitution", and prohibited them from saving seeds from the harvest for replanting. Does that qualify or do we have to kill them all?
cfm in Gray, ME
I see this as a permutation of the Vietnam thing. If only we "let them fight," we'd have won. Crapola. We wouldn't have won.
Iraq, on the other hand, is absolutely vital to American strategic concerns, and consequently complete domination of the country is non-negotiable to the ruling elite (as the current rhetoric about the war across the whole of the mainsteam political spectrum makes entirely clear). Thus, the ruling elites will count NO cost too high a price to pay for completely subjugating the place. By now, it is pretty clear that the dynamic of the situation in Iraq will also result in 3-4 million Iraqi dead eventually, and possibly also 50,000 or so US dead as well, as was also the case in Vietnam. But due to the much higher stakes, the ruling elite will NOT cut their losses in Iraq, as they did in Vietnam, and the lethal dynamic that is currently intensifying in its unfolding in Iraq will continue to do so until the country is substantially depopulated, one way or another. Probably the circumstances leading to this result will be much more gradual in unfolding than simply blanketing the place with neutron bombs, but the ultimate effect will be essentially the sam.
As concrete evidence in support of this line of argument, I would point to the 14 permanent military bases that are quietly being constructed in Iraq, the provisions that were quietly inserted into the Constitution to essentially deprive Iraq of sovereign control of its oil reserves so as to facilitate their exploitation by American business interests, and the vast embassy complex currently being constructed (with what is essentially slave labor, incidentally). The embassy complex is huge: 20 or more buildings spread over an area larger than the Vatican, and intended for as many as 3000 US personnel. This arrangement is clearly intended to assure long-term iron control over any Iraqi puppet government that the US hopes eventually to cobble together.
The problem is that the US will not succeed, I think, in cobbling together a puppet regime that is stable over the long-term, and that is able to reliably facilitate US control over the oil resources of the region, as well as a situation where the country serves as a stable platform for projecting military power into the broader region. Consequently, the current chaos and violence will only continue and intensify, until well beyond the point where there are more Iraqi dead than living.
You seem to be temperamentally pessimistic about human nature and our propensity for conflict.
As a humanist with a principled faith in human nature, I try not to be blinded by my faith but to adopt a pragmatic attitude. I am well aware of man's potential for inhumanity (Rwanda and Yugoslavia are the two events in my lifetime which have been the most traumatic for my psyche), but I require a rational scenario for resource wars before I will entertain them as a serious proposition.
In short : I assert that Iraq is a powerful counter-example (a hugely losing proposition for the USA, if evaluated as a resource grab). Whatever evil instincts may motivate individuals, political leaders with the capacity to start resource wars are, to a great extent, rational actors (more so, on average, than GWB), and will evaluate the costs and benefits before engaging such actions.
If you were to outline some scenarios where a resource war might plausibly provide a net gain for the aggressor, then we would have a starting point. We could then examine whether the political leaders and/or populations would be sufficiently unscrupulous to engage one.
now, the US oil cartel will be allowed to claim all Iraqi oil
fields. And this is the result of a rational plan developed by the Project for the New American Century [PNAC, you can llok it up online]. The current cost of the exercise is trivial in comparison with the oil bonanza.
The conduct of the occupation is in keeping with the idea
of divide and conquer: civil war, debilitation of the population so that they can't resist, and provision of a political smoke-screen for this by making it about 'democracy'. Maybe I'm just not very bright but I can't see any benefit for the Iraqis in this, just for the US polution especially its oil companies.
That the ruling clique always knew that Iraq would be a horrible mess and would cost thousands of lives and the midterm elections, but that it would all be worth it because they would seize control of Iraq's crumbling oil industry?
And you assert they have in fact seized that control, and it is being used to the strategic advantage of the US how, exactly?
Obviously, there is no advantage for the Iraqis in the current mess. That doesn't prove that there's an advantage for the US. It's a lose-lose situation. A war that never should have happened.
Intuitively I feel that future "resource wars" will be lose-lose. But I would like to see plausible discussion of the subject.
We live in an Oligarchy. The Democrats are not interested in pulling out of Iraq even if that is what they say.
And more over, now that I see the aftermath of the elections, Rummy getting canned, other Pentagon staff leaving, and several other things that could've kept Republicans in office, I have to wonder if Bush and crew wanted a Democratic congress. He sure seems happy that the Democrats are likely to meet him on several issues that Conservatives(note not Republicans) had held him up on.
Immigration reform anyone? Super-NAFTA, the Super highway being built right through Texas on up to Canada.
The more I see the way Bush acting now after the elections the more I'm convinced that he just sold out his conservative base utterly and completely. Most folks knew he wasn't a solid conservative, but the way he has run this administration and the near glee he has expressed at getting to work with Democrats on several issues that a Republican congress kept him at bay with, I'm now convinced he's flaming liberal backstabber.
(And that's not a slight at liberals, at least those who are honest enough to stand openly with their beliefs)
I suspect you may want to get at the idea that traditional Judeo-Christian teaching encourages us to adopt the hard, cold truth that each of us is fundamentally imperfect and self-interested, and therefore in need of divine assistance. The humility that this realization instills should work to reduce our grasping for worldly ways to position ourselves in this world, whether it's through continuing consumption/accumulation - in culturally appropriate ways (the dominant value system in the US - "got to get that SUV now!"), or through curtailing consumption to prove to others that we really are "good". While the second option lessens one's this-worldly impact (GHG, oil depletion rates, etc.), either way is doomed, and no real change can come until people accept their fundamental imperfection.
I see two streams of thought in your post that I'd encourage you to draw out more. First is the idea that the J-C belief pattern is more realist than secular humanism. Second is that the J-C belief about "human nature" is more realistic than the secular humanist belief.
I'm not saying you are wrong, but I wanted to point out that you seem to conflate the two thoughts and I'm not sure that you noticed it given the way you wrote. To help us all understand where you are going with this I'd suggest that you make explicit the following;
What is the J-C belief in human nature you are referring to.
What is the S.H. belief in human nature you are referring to.
What is the J-C political realism you are referring to.
What is the S.H. political realism you are referring to.
I'm not saying we all have to agree to your definitions, but this would be the place where we can start to talk about your ideas.
Here is a slightly expanded version of my position, which I hope will in one way or another address many of the responses that people have made to my post so far: The faith in humanity that is implicit in such proposals as the Oil Depletion Protocal is demonstrably false. Overwhelming evidence for this claim may be obtained by an unbiased study of the history of human civilization. This history is overwhelmingly shaped by the domination of the strong by the weak for selfish motives. The only grounds to hope that this might suddenly change at the present juncture of history are religious in nature. However, I see no rational basis to justify this leap of faith.
Nevertheless, human beings need SOME basis of hope in order not to despair. Such a basis of hope IS available, and it may be found in a proper understanding of traditional Judeo-Christian faith. This faith is revealed to humanity in a series of divine oracles stretching back thousands of years, and recorded in the Scriptures. The claim that these REALLY ARE divine oracles, and not myths of purely human concoction, IS a rationally defensible proposition. Attacks against this proposition are, upon closer examination, invariably undermined by a pervasive logical circularity, and the arbitrary dismissal of an abundance of evidence of many different kinds that goes towards supporting the rationality of Judeo-Christian belief.
This debate about human propensities in the state of nature (our species "default setting") is of course centuries old. I think the ethnographic and archaeological data accumulated by anthropologists over the last 150 years is increasingly unkind to the Rousseau side of that Enlightenment debate, on which side you seem to reside. I intend to pull together this information for a longer post/article here, should the editors permit, since this issue recurs with some frequency on TOD.
While I am no Rousseau-ian, I would be interested to see what this enthnographic and archeological evidence is that you are talking about. I'm pretty widely read when it comes to anthropology and in general I'd say that our understanding of non-city based societies has increasingly moved towards respect for the high levels of sophistication they exhibit. Certainly not all are benign, pacifistic societies (indeed, I would never claim such). Still, the overall balance, the integration of life with the ecological surroundings, is something that is not equalled in "civilization."
But that book is "Constant Battles" by Steven LeBlanc.
I keep a file of great quotes from all the really good books I have read. Here are the ones I saved from Constant Battles.
Ron Patterson
Thanks for the book recommedation. I'm sincere when I say that I will check it out. As for my interest in the issue, I found it interesting enough to write [a significant academic right of passage] around these issues. I don't disagree with anything in the passages you cite, though it does seem in that last passage that he makes an error not uncommon in this field - arguing for a belief about pre-civilizational societies from evidence in early civilizational societies. As I look at some of the reviews on the Amazon page, it does appear that this is something he does frequently (suggesting that Ilium was a pre-civilizational society, for example).
I know you're an empiricist, so I'll make an empirical observation that draws into question this growth as a survival tactic argument. Depending on what you use as your key event determining where we become modern humans, we know of somewhere between 40,000 and 100,000 years of human social history. Our current growth oriented relationship to the environment, more specifically our hubristic attempts to mold the environment, is the foundation of civilization. These forms of social organization are only around 6-8000 years old. For the first 32000 to 94000 years of our history we lived in societies that managed to avoid this problem with growth.
Again, I'm not arguing for some mythical type of lost eden. My concern is with the relationship with the environment. And while I am under no misconception that all "primal" societies were ecologically sound, there is no denying that they have a fundamentally different relationship with their environment than do civilizational societies.
The most common error made in discussing our "pre-history" is to assume that the notions of progress that are a part of our modernist viewpoint are valid for all societies in all places and times. Usually this means that we take our knowledge of a brief time span of human history and assume that what happened during that time frame can be imagined as continuing backward in time to its logical conclusion/origin. The problem with this is that there is a really really big discontinuity back where our historical knowledge comes to an end.
In three places, possibly four, but significantly only that many times (at least successfully), a group of people confronted with an ecological challenge chose to attempt to significantly adapt their environment to themselves rather than the other way around.
The really odd thing, too, is that the first group to do that, didn't even live where they decided to make this change. The groups that would become the Mesopotamians lived in the Zagros mountains before coming down into the flood plains. What amazing hubris! Even though I think it has been a disastorous misdirection of our energies, you gotta respect the sheer audacity.
Kelly, Raymond C. 2000 Warless Societies and the Origin of War. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
Krech, Shepard 1999 The ecological Indian : myth and history. NY: W.W. Norton & Company.
Schmookler, Andrew Bard 1984 The parable of the tribes : the problem of power in social evolution. Berkeley: University of California Press.
And I agree, your argument is claptrap. ;-)
Ron Patterson
If you want to challenge anything I have said, then please challenge either the evidence adduced, or the logic of the argumentation. Anything else is uncivil and lacking in rationality.
You make Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor argument.
Leanan's links to "dark matter" of American politics then the Chernobyl economy eventually led me back again to this Kolko article, "Global Economic Deluge". The solution to that, the corpos and the Grand Inquisitor know, is the authoritarian state. The Military Commissions Act and the modifications to the Insurrection Act Bush signed the same day are less about foreign "terrorists" than about domestic control.
Having worked with a couple of House and Senate candidates, and having been a candidate for Governor myself in past cycle, I know that at least some of the leadership knows what is going on with natural resources, growth and energy. I'm continually haunted by what one member of state cabinet told me - that it will not be addressed democratically.
This is what Heinberg meant by soldiers shooting at the life rafts and canoes.
cfm in Gray, ME
Do any of the politicos that you're around have any feelings about the $385 million contracted to Halliburton for civilian inmate camps?
To tell you the truth, when taken into context with peak oil and the massive population of the United States, I can almost see where camps that have at least access to food and water and a warm bunk might be a compassionate response by government to an unknowable future.
Or this might be just more lucre for Halliburton ...
"KBR, the Halliburton subsidiary recently reprimanded for gross overcharging in its military contracts in Iraq, won a $385 million contract to build the centers.
"According to the Halliburton website -- www.Halliburton.com -- 'the contract, which is effective immediately, provides for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to augment existing ICE Detention and Removal Operations Program facilities in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs.'"
You're correct, this worldview of faith in mankind is indeed a form of secular religion known as secular humanism.
You're also correct to have a pessimistic view of human nature. Anyone with children will recognize that the basic instict of a human is selfishness. It is only through great effort that a child is taught to treat others with respect. A child who grows up without moral input from parents is much more likely to become a criminal than a saint.
This is why the founding fathers of the US created the system of checks and balanced. They people people will always function for their own self interest and at the expense of others. Only by having everyone's selfish interests balance out does society function.
This calculus is based on the primacy of raw power in determining events of human history (most especially the raw military power held by the United States).
Henry Kissinger and other proponents of realpolitik (or realism-based foreign policy) recognize that if an imbalance of power exists between two competing countries, it is inevitable that the more powerful country will dominate the less powerful, and they will probably overtake that country either by war, colonization or by non-violent capitalistic empiralism (as the US does all over the world today). Kissinger believed that only by a careful balance of power could countries co-exist with each other without trying to anhiliate or dominate each other. ONce again, the default actions of humans either individually or collectively is selfish and without checks political and moral checks built into the system, great evil results.
Whoa there. That is indeed a rather bold, and IMO, frankly bizarre and demented assertion.
You know, various analyses of the situation yield different predictions of the future, but any and all of them are WAY more rationally defensible than traditional J-C religious beliefs.
You see, some people grapple with the data, and try to model what's going on, and maybe the model is faulty and maybe the data is insufficient, but wrong or right, whatever else it is it's rationally defensible on some level.
OTOH, how is belief in a disparate amalgamation of myths regarding ancient Near Eastern, wrathful, Bronze Age Sky Gods rationally defensible?
- sgage
- The fulfillment of many Biblical prophecies in the Old Testament regarding events that it would be impossible to foresee naturally. There are many examples - the number of them runs literally into the many hundreds - but probably the two most spectacular sets of such prophecies in the entire Bible are the ones made in Dan 9:24-27, and in most of Dan 11.
- The abundant testimony available regarding the experience of a personal, loving God in extraordinary forms of mysticism, as well as in more ordinary, everyday states of prayer.
- Mounting archeological evidence attesting to the historicity of much in the Bible that is casually dismissed as mythical.
- Supernatural phenomena of many kinds, both divine and demonic in their origins, that natural science is incapable of explaining. Examples include the hosts and wine that have been miraculously transformed into human flesh and blood that can be found even today in many locations in Europe. Another example is the Shroud of Turin, the image of which was created by a supernatural burst of energy at the moment of Christ's rising from the dead. Examples evidencing the activity of a demonic realm include many scientifically unexplainable phenomena associated with the occult.
Those who deny the rationality of Judeo-Christian orthodoxy generally studiously ignore all these lines of evidence, as well as others that do not readily come to mind at the moment.A big part of the reason why this is so little appreciated is because Christian intellectuals down through the ages have done a deplorable job of advancing such a rational defense, on the whole. In my view, there are two basic reasons for this:
No, we don't. At least, not all of us do. We just aren't convinced by the supposed "evidence."
- Prophecy is easy to fit to reality in hindsight. See Nostradamus. Or Jeanne Dixon.
- Testimonials are not reliable. Even if true, they may be better explained as an artifact of the way the human brain functions. Kind of like "alien abduction" experiences.
- I believe parts of the Bible are historical. That doesn't mean believing the supernatural elements. Just as I believe that Troy existed, without believing that Helen of Troy was the daughter of Zeus.
- Dunno about the rest of it, but I'm convinced that the Shroud of Turin is a work of art. What convinced me? The fact that the arms are absurdly, inhumanly long - apparently so the hands can cover the genitals.
IMO, trying to argue a rational basis for religion is going about it all wrong. You can't prove or disprove faith logically. Heck, the whole point of it is to take that leap of faith.matt
Here's a photo of the Shroud of Turin, courtesy of Fortean Times:
The arms are crooked, and presumably resting at the corpse's side, but the hands still cover the genitals. The forearms look oddly long, and so do the fingers of the right hand.
With all due respect, your brief remarks indicate that you have never really devoted careful, in-depth attention and study to the lines of evidence to which I briefly drew attention:
- Regarding Biblical prophecies, many are incredibly detailed and unambiguous. For example, Dan 9:26 contains an unmistakeable prediction of the death of the Messiah, as well as of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman army. Both events actually transpired about 600 years following Daniel's vision - the one around 33ad, the second in 70 ad. And Dan 11 contains an amazingly detailed set of predictions involving relations between the Jewish state and the Persian Empire, followed by detailed predictions involving relations between the Jewish State and the Greek Empire and its Seleucid and Ptolemaic successors that stretch over many generations.
- Have you ever read the writings of any of the great Christian mystics? Have you read serious psychological and theological studies of these writings by authors who do not have an A PRIORI antisupernatural bias?
- I don't think that the Shroud of Turin is as easy to debunk as you suggest. And you did not even mention the Eucharistic miracles of which I spoke. There are many all over Europe, but the most famous one is perhaps the one in Orvieto, Italy. I encourage you to do a google search on it.
- Antisupernatural Bible critics regularly ignore archaeological evidence that overturns their dismissal of key parts of the Bible as mythical. A good example is from the book of Daniel: King Belshazzar (unfortunate recipient of the "handwriting on the wall" by the hand of God, from which we get the expression "the handwriting is on the wall") of Dan 5 was dismissed as mythical for generations by antisupernatural Bible critics - until extra-Biblical archaeological evidence surfaced in the form of inscriptions attesting to his actual existence. But this archaeological testimony has since been passed over with thunderous silence by these same antisupernatural critics. Is this an unbiased, scientific approach to the question? I should say not.
Lest all this seem irrelevant on a Peak Oil site, I assure you that it is not. Peak Oil constitutes an unprecedented crisis, and all hopes for dealing with the crisis through purely human and natural means are doomed to failure. The only hope for humanity is the one that is supernaturally indicated in the Judeo-Christian oracles.On the other side of the ledger, you have the prophecy I cited before in Dan 9:26, which refers to two events that happened WELL AFTER Maccabean times that are also prophesied in the Book of Daniel:
- The crucifixion of the Messiah in 33 ad;
- The destruction of Jerusalem in 70 ad.
Since these dates are both well after the very latest date of composition that critics dare to assign to Daniel, they definitively establish the book's supernatural credentials.- One is the prophecies of 9:26 already cited in another post, which were fulfilled much later than during Maccabean times.
- A second reason is rooted in a characteristic commonly associated with Old Testament Prophecy in particular, namely, that of prophecy passing over vast periods of time lying between two clusters of prophesied events in silence. This phenomenon is often associated with prophecies of messanic suffering being juxtaposed with prophecies of messianic glory, with no indication of a time-gap between the two. This phenomenon puzzled the prophets themselves, as well as subsequent Jewish commentators down through the ages. The Christian solution is that the prophecies of messianic suffering were fulfilled 2000 years ago in the past, whereas the prophecies of messianic glory remain to be fulfilled in the future.
The transition point at Dan 11:39 falls into this general category of prophecies that include an open time-gap, and Antiochus Epiphanes, who is the object of the prophecies applying to Maccabean times, is understood both by traditional Judaism and traditional Christianity as foreshadowing the Antichrist of the future, spoken of in Dan 11:39ff.Honestly, I don't see how the Bible can be proof of anything, because its provenance is such a mess. A lot of different authors, a lot of different times, things lost in translation, parts declared apocryphal. Books written hundreds of years after the events they describe, then translated, edited, etc.
Even if you believe it's the word of god, it's passed through an awful lot of fallible human translators first.
But even assuming for the sake of argument that it is a universally valid epistemological principle, one can only apply it to questions of the Provenance of Scripture when making an exhaustive comparison of the pro and con arguments on both sides of the supernatural origins claims. Application of Occam's Razor to selective and sketchy evidence pro and con can lead to misleading results. The simplest result in view of an exhaustive understanding might well be the opposite of what APPEARS to be the simplest result in light of a merely partial understanding.
- The crucifixion of the Messiah [rendered "Mashiach Nagid," or "Messiah the Ruler," in the original Hebrew] in 33 ad;
- The destruction of Jerusalem in 70 a.d.
Since these dates are both well after the very latest date of composition that critics dare to assign to Daniel (about 164BC), by at least 200 years, in fact, they definitively establish the book's supernatural credentials.Here is the verse, with my comments on it in brackets:
"After the sixty-two 'sevens,' "Mashiach Nagid" will be cut off and will have nothing. [This is a prediction of Messiah's death. The "sixty two sevens" are in fact part of an accurate timeline predicting the EXACT DAY of this event, but that is a topic too involved to tackle in this post.] The people of the ruler who will come [known to be a reference to the Romans from the broader context] will destroy the city and the sanctuary [known to be a reference to Jerusalem from the context]. The end will come like a flood [A reference to the savagery and ruthlessness of Titus' seige of Jerusalem in 70 a.d.]."
"After the sixty-two 'sevens,' "Mashiach Nagid" will be cut off and will have nothing. [This is a prediction that the Nagid's wife will no longer sleep with him. The "sixty two sevens" are in fact part of an accurate timeline predicting the EXACT DAY of this event, but that is a topic too involved to tackle in this post.] The people of the ruler who will come [known to be a reference to the Martians from the broader context] will destroy the city and the sanctuary [known to be a reference to New York City from the context]. The end will come like a flood [A reference to the high energy particle beam deployed by the martians in 2070 a.d.]."
That's always the problem with thes prophecies - the prophets (at least the good one's) have to be pretty vague to make sure their followers can interpret widely enough to fit the prophecy into their world. You know, if he really had wanted to impress people he should have said something along the lines of "hey, in about x number years we're going to have a messiah who will be killed in his prime, and then the damn Romans will have spread throughout the meditaranean and will destroy Jerusalem." Because, hey, if the prophet really was plugged in, he can't use lack of knowledge of future names as an excuse.
If you wish to become decently knowledgeable about this topic, I recommend the following books:
- A thorough knowledge of the Bible itself, especially of the Book of Daniel;
- Sir Robert Anderson's THE COMING PRINCE
- Robert Duncan Culver's DANIEL AND THE LATTER DAYS
- The two volumes of ESSAYS ON THE BOOK OF DANIEL by Robert Dick Wilson.
I've said it before on this thread, and I will say it again: If anyone wants to maintain that Judeo-Christian belief is irrational, a necessary but not sufficient condition for this is that they have an exhaustive knowledge of the evidence and arguments adduced by the defenders of this belief. Ignorance thereof makes the assertion that their position is irrational guilty of irrationality itself.If you wish to understand this subject from anything more than an already decided upon perspective, try reading some of the philisophical hermenueticists like Dilthey, Gadamer, Ricouer. Or maybe just a good universal historian like Toynbee.
Your argument was that the prophetic language is so vague as to make interpretation of the book fundamentally subjective. The language admits of no fixed meaning content that would permit someone such as myself to point to the prophecies and assert that they were unambiguously fulfilled in a way that proves super-naturally derived knowledge ahead of the event.
That is a fair objection to raise, and you are right that I did not address it head-on in my earlier post. For that I apologize also, and I will attempt to do address it below:
The fact is that Daniel does not merely unambiguously predict THAT the Messiah will die. It unambiguously predicts WHEN this will happen DOWN TO THE VERY DAY (or very nearly so, as will be explained in what follows). Here, first, is the passage that predicts this:
9:24 Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.
9:25 Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
9:26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.
9:27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
Now I will show that this passage DOES contain a fixed, objective meaning content that was unambiguously fulfilled by events subsequent to its utterance. The key verse is 9:25. Based on a careful analysis of of other parts of Scripture, especially Revelation and other chapters in Daniel, it can be shown that each "week" (really a mistranslation of "shabua," meaning "sevens") is a time unit of 360 days. This Scriptural evidence is corroborated by the fact that the basic calendar of the Jews consisted of 360 days, as was common in antiquity. As such, the 7+62 already fulfilled weeks of 9:25 are 69 "sevens" of 360 days. 69 x 7 x 360 yields a total of 173,880 days.
The terminus ad quem, or beginning, of these "69 sevens" is the "going forth of the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem." From Nehemiah 2:1-8, this is known to be the Emperor Artaxerxes' decree permitting the rebuilding of Jerusalem, issued March 14, 445 B.C. That is the ONLY historically recorded event that fits the meaning of the verse.
The terminus a quo, or end of these "69 sevens" ends "unto Mashiach Nagid (or "unto Messiah the Ruler"). This refers to Jesus of Nazareth's public revelation of himself as King of Israel to the Jewish people, which happened at the time of His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, riding on the foal of a donkey, just a few days before His death. This occurred on April 6, 32 a.d.
Now here is the amazing thing: The time interval between these dates is EXACTLY 173,880 days. Thus, Daniel predicted not merely the arrival on the scene and subsequent death of the Messianic King, but he predicted the EXACT DATE when this would happen. Surely this is an unambiguous fulfillment of elements in the meaning of the prophecy that were objectively given well before the events themselves occurred.
For more information on this, see Sir Robert Anderson's late 19th century work THE COMING PRINCE (available in full online; just do a google search), as well as a more recent series of articles on the date of major events in Jesus' life in the journal BIBLIOTHECA SACRA.
These verses also explain why there were such fervent Messianic hopes among the Jews around the time of Jesus' birth. Faithful Jews (such as Simeon in Luke 2:24-35) KNEW this Scripture, and they therefore KNEW that the appointed time for Messiah's arrival was near.
Unfortunately, as Jesus himself lamented on the day of His triumphal entry into Jerusalem as the Messianic King of Israel, the Jewish people, especially the ruling cadres, did not acknowledge or accept Him as King. In consequence, Jesus predicted Jerusalem's ultimate destruction, which indeed took place a bit less than 40 years later (see Luke 19:41-44).
The 70th Week of verse 9:27 is as yet still future, and will terminate with the glorious return of the Messianic King.
Wish I had gotten here earlier...
[holy music]
FOLLOWERS:
Oh! Oh! Ohh! Oh! Ah! Oh!
ARTHUR:
He has given us a sign!
FOLLOWER:
Oh!
SHOE FOLLOWER:
He has given us... His shoe!
ARTHUR:
The shoe is the sign. Let us follow His example.
SPIKE:
What?
ARTHUR:
Let us, like Him, hold up one shoe and let the other be upon our foot, for this is His sign, that all who follow Him shall do likewise.
EDDIE:
Yes.
SHOE FOLLOWER:
No, no, no. The shoe is...
YOUTH:
No.
SHOE FOLLOWER:
...a sign that we must gather shoes together in abundance.
GIRL:
Cast off...
SPIKE:
Aye. What?
GIRL:
...the shoes! Follow the Gourd!
SHOE FOLLOWER:
No! Let us gather shoes together!
FRANK:
Yes.
SHOE FOLLOWER:
Let me!
ELSIE:
Oh, get off!
YOUTH:
No, no! It is a sign that, like Him, we must think not of the things of the body, but of the face and head!
SHOE FOLLOWER:
Give me your shoe!
YOUTH:
Get off!
GIRL:
Follow the Gourd! The Holy Gourd of Jerusalem!
FOLLOWER:
The Gourd!
HARRY:
Hold up the sandal, as He has commanded us!
ARTHUR:
It is a shoe! It is a shoe!
HARRY:
It's a sandal!
ARTHUR:
No, it isn't!
GIRL:
Cast it away!
ARTHUR:
Put it on!
YOUTH:
And clear off!
SHOE FOLLOWER:
Take the shoes and follow Him!
GIRL:
Come,...
FRANK:
Yes!
GIRL:
...all ye who call yourself Gourdenes!
SPIKE:
Stop! Stop! Stop, I say! Stop! Let us-- let us pray. Yea, He cometh to us, like the seed to the grain.
Courtesy of Monty Pythons Life of Brian.
They could still have been added later. In any case, those "predictions" are pretty vague. Kind of like Revelations. People have been seeing signs of the imminent approach of the end times for 2,000 years now.
But I do want to make a more general observation regarding our series of exchanges over the course of the day. It is very clear to me from all you have said that you have NOT grappled in an intellectually exhaustive way with all the various strands of evidence that render traditional Judeo-Christian theism rational. That is, of course, your prerogative; you are a free agent, and no one can force you to do this.
However, an extremely important conclusion can be drawn from the fact that you have not done so, namely, that you are in no position to assert that people who DO have a belief in the traditional Judeo-Christian faith lack rational bases for doing so. For anyone to be in this position, they would have to have a thorough knowledge of the evidence and arguments that speak in favor of belief. It is quite clear to me that you do not.
Moreover, to be in this position, one must also be cognizant of the many forms of non-rationality that can frequently be shown to undergird the postures of those opposed to Judeo-Christian faith - such as the assertion of intellectually unjustified a prioris as a matter of "faith," the pervasive use of circular reasoning in a supposedly rational enterprise, and the arbitrary disregard of evidence countervailing one's unbelief. These types of errors in rationality have been abundantly pointed out in books by Christian conservatives in a way that amply demonstrates the intellectual bankruptcy of anti-supernatural Biblical criticism.
As such, the claim I made at the beginning of the day that Judeo-Christian belief has a much firmer basis than faith in the ability of humanity to solve its own problems has by no means been demonstrated to be false. I think we agree that faith in human nature has no rational basis, but I also think that you are not in a position to maintain that my belief in the Judeo-Christian faith lacks a rational basis.
Er...why is that important?
Not that I've ever made that accusation to begin with.
I do not claim to have proven my worldview to be accurate over the course of today's thread, but I do claim to have demonstrated that it ought to be regarded as having the potential of being rational by those who oppose it - at least until they have thoroughly familiarized themselves with the reasons why those who hold it do so. The fact is that, in its own way, the anti-supernatural and anti-religious bias that tends to prevail on TOD is as narrow and anti-intellectual as the rightwing religious fundamentalism that many posters here regularly deplore (and rightly so).
However, beginning at verse 11:40 (which is where the transition mentioned by Wikipedia actually begins, now that I have my Bible open, not at 11:39), there appears, as if out of nowhere, mention of a THIRD individual, who is the object of attack of BOTH the King of the North AND the King of the South in verse 11:40, and whose retaliatory actions are then detailed in 11:41-45. If these verses were intended by the bestower of the divine oracle to be historically continuous with what precedes them, then the King of the North would have to continue to be IDENTICAL with Antiochus Epiphanes, as is the case in the verses preceding 11:40.
This is the way antisupernaturalists treat the matter. But actually, in verse 11:40, all of a sudden, the King of the North becomes an individual DISTINCT from a third person, who appears as if from nowhere. Here is the verse:
"At the time of the end the king of the South will engage him [new third person]in battle, and the king of the North will storm out against him [same new third person] with chariots and cavalry and a great fleet of ships. He [new third person] will invade many countries and sweep through them like a flood. 41 He will also invade the Beautiful Land. Many countries will fall, but Edom, Moab and the leaders of Ammon will be delivered from his hand...."
There is a reason why he appears from nowhere: The prophetic sequence abruptly shifts ahead more than 2000 years from Antiochus Epiphanes' time.
As human beings, we all have a need to hope for a better future, despite current crises. I believe that no good purpose is served by a persistent belief in a false basis for hope (i.e., human nature). Consequently, I am pleading a very passionate, yet also very rational, case for what I regard to be the only TRUE basis of hope for humanity in the face of Peak Oil: traditional Judeo-Christian faith, properly understood (which no well-known organized representative of that faith DOES properly understand, in my opinion).
Phil,
How do you know that the prophecy suddenly shifted? I've been reading the Bible for 28 years. I've read the prophetic books many times. It doesn't say that that the prophecy is shifting now. How can you know that it is?
Marc
aka NotLAPlaywright
All great works of fiction begin with seeds of truth.
If scientifically-minded people dismiss this sort of physical, empirical evidence with a wave of the hand, they evince a bias that flies straight in the face of their own avowed empiricism.
Source?
Eyewitness accounts are the least reliable form of evidence. (As we're finding out, as dozens of people convicted via eyewitness testimony are being exonerated by DNA evidence.)
I think it's quite possible that things exist that science cannot explain. That doesn't mean science will never explain it, though, and it certainly doesn't mean that the Christian flavor of religion is true. After all, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, etc., also claim miracles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucharistic_Miracle
Well, the human flesh and blood that resulted from Eucharistic miracles that transpired in medieval times, in places such as Orvieto, Lanciano, and Naples, falls into exactly this category of physically sensible and measurable evidence, because the physical results of these miracles still exist today. They are on display in Churches in these towns, and may even be viewed by tourists. And in at least one of these instances (I forget which offhand), the flesh and blood was subjected to all manner of rigorous scientific testing in the early 1970s. Ignoring their role in our debate is thus purely a matter of the will, not of the rational intellect.
But I admit that I do not know enough about the situation offhand to preclude what you are getting at: namely, that a hoax was perpetrated in medieval times, and that the flesh and blood we have today originated with that hoax.
I don't assume a location or an actual existence.
You say you assume nothing, but in actuality you already assumed there was no soul and thus it couldn't have a location.
Your statement that "My belief can only be defined thru examination of probabilities" is meaningless and need not take up our time.
I was taking your question and doing an interpretation on it. Turns out it's an interpretation you don't like. <shrug> In that interpretation I was indeed applying it to a context of belief. I did that specifically because my reading of your question suggested that you felt you were belief-free. You might think that there was no method, but all that really means is that you don't know, or don't understand the method deployed.
See, you asked your original question thinking you knew where it was going to take you. I threw you off the mark by going in a direction you didn't expect. This has clearly upset you. I won't apologize for that because it was what I expected - why I responded.
I do see your point.
Wording the question differently would have made this easier. How that would be worded I will have to think about though.
The trouble I have found with belief is that it is typically something that someone else (who is invariably wrong in their belief) has or does. The person pointing this out almost never has a belief, there point of view is founded in "truth," whether that be the bible, science, rationalism, whatever.
Here's what I've noticed. We tell stories to each other (and to ourselves). All the time, we tell stories. Some are more convincing to me than others. Yet, since I can't stand outside of myself, there's no way I can think of to assure that what is more convincing to me is that way because of the story or because of me.
In regard to your point about stories how about this. Massive amounts of information are presented before all of us all day every day. Because of our limitations we filter this information in a way that fits our own reality.
For instance with peak oil interpretations of the data that is out there is all over the place and those interpretations are sometimes very convincing on all sides. In addition who knows if the data is even correct?
I can say I want to believe that peak oil is happening now and that if it is not it will happen soon. However I also can honestly stand back and say that other people see it differently and what if that is my viewpoint based on filtered information to fit my own reality.
What are you thoughts on that??
But, it's clear that what you call filtering goes on all the time. We have an 18 month old (please no cracks about me being old enough to be his grandfather) and he reminds of this everyday.
The accuracy of the data, though, is not that important. We've known that this is coming since at least the 70s, the precise measures don't really matter. In the end, societies, like individuals move based on which stories being told hold sway at any one time. Right now resource depletion and problems with growth economics are secondary, even counter cultural stories.
We can hang around and find out if we're "right" - but I learned long ago that being right isn't always the most important thing.
If you think you have a filtering problem now though wait to they are 2 1/2. Talk about filtering.
Have a good night. Look forward to future discussions.
My point and the following conversation is that simple things that go along with relegious beliefs are not so easy to define. We as humans constantly oversimply our thoughts and in most cases don't ardently examine things we believe in from a neutral standpoint.
I have had many such experiences in various religious contexts (Calvinist, Charismatic, Catholic) and at the time I labeled them "experiences of God". Now, no longer a Christian, I still experience the same feelings but would label them 'peak' experiences (after Maslow), transcendent, mystical and certainly beautiful. In short, the context doesn't prove the source.
Perhaps more interesting to the denizens of TOD is a story called, "Can Coal Come Clean? How to surive the return of the world' dirtiest fossil fuel."
It's a lengthy article with a lot of photos. I may post it later.
But wait! The last pope on the list was apparently added later. It's a fake! (The Benedictines didn't want their order associated with the AntiChrist.)
So the current pope is actually the one on the list. The ASPO newsletter pointed out that the English word oil is ultimately derived from the Greek (and Latin) word for olive. Seen in this light, perhaps olivæ means not olives, but oil. Gloria, "glory," "fame," would then mean "height of popularity." Which makes Gloria olivæ "the Pope of Peak Oil." Benedict XVI.
Isn't it quite a coincidence the word "oil" may actually originate in Mesopotamia (Akkadian)? And another interesting point is that, in Homer, the verb "to drive" is "elao"!
As for Gloria, it derives from the Latin "clueo" (to hear oneself called, to be reputed or esteemed), which is a cognate with the Greek "kluo", meaning simply "to hear".
Naturally this means that "Gloria olivae" is a corruption of the original Greek, meaning "The Bloke Who Hears About [Peak] Oil". QED.
I'm being serious...it's quite fascinating when you dig down to the roots of word origins.
Thanks for sharing.
A short story. Once, when I was about 17, (I am now 68) I asked my father, "Dad, how did them there kangroos git from Australia over there to where Noah's ark wuz. And how did they git back? (We talked that way in Alabama back then.)
Dad jumped up and stuck his finger right in my face and said: "Son, that is the word of God and that is not for you to question."
If I had been a bit smarter then, I would have learned a lesson from that bit of advice, "never ask a fundamentalist to use reason". But dumb ass me, it took me many years to learn that lesson.
Ron Patterson
And it should be.
I mean, think about it. If God really is all-powerful, he could have made the world so everyone in it believes in Him. Instead, the world's full of heathens.
If He wanted to convert us all, He could perform a miracle that was absolutely indisputable, and shout down from the Heavens to believe or burn in hell. But He doesn't.
Obviously, He wants it to be a leap of faith, not an exercise in logic.
Disagree. Tell me how to discern between God, an advanced civilization toying with us, a being with God-like powers who, nevertheless, is not THE God, and insanity.But non-believers who claim to be fully rational have a LOT to be embarrassed about. Their alleged refutations of religion are riddled with irrationalities, which by all rights ought to be completely absent from the equation. The fact that they are not absent proves that rejection of the Judeo-Christian faith is LESS rational than its acceptance, since the non-rationality of trust is built into the very concept of what Judeo-Christian religious belief involves. Non-believers trust only in their reason, which proves to be very irrational indeed.
Especially hilarious is the Menucius Felix, where the 'Christian' scoffs at the idea that his people worship a crucified man.
Really, if you've never heard of these ideas, check them out. Too many athiests accept that nonetheless there was a historical Jesus, some sort of really cool hippy - like in Jesus Christ Superstar ('Everybody get outta here!').
Apologies Ron for using your post as a takeoff for this. But if people are going to talk religious sh*te, then we ought to bring Doherty and the 'mythical Jesus' position up.
My sister, the academic conehead, has studied the era, and she says Monty Python's The Life of Brian is a pretty accurate depiction. It was a crazy time.
The superiority of a world-view based on empiricism and scientific method, as opposed to a world-view predicated on mysticism or the supernatural, is manifest, demonstrable, absolute.
Look at history, and see the follies into which people fling themselves headlong, because their faith (or their priests) spout doctrine which is counter to observation and common sense. Look around you today, and see the same thing.
Or keep the scales in your eyes, I don't care. But do not claim rationality.
I detect a strawman in your argument : who exactly is claiming that "skepticism or rejection [of Judeo-Christian orthodoxy] is inherently rational"? Such skepticism can be examined on its own merits, and may be fallacious in particular instances. However in the long run, any faith-based world view, be it J-C or Buddhist or Muslim or pantheist, will not stand uo against scientific method as concerns the real world. As to what happens in the immaterial world, then one opinion is as good as another.
By the way, I responded to you on self-interested wars
I'm sure you were. Gotta get those witnessing points.
"I stand by this claim, and point in a very general way to just a few pieces of evidence oft-ignored by opponents of this view:"
These are not oft-ignored at all. They are oft-trotted-out by people trying to fulfill their witnessing obligation, and "opponents" simply get tired of refuting the same old stuff.
" 1. The fulfillment of many Biblical prophecies in the Old Testament regarding events that it would be impossible to foresee naturally. There are many examples - the number of them runs literally into the many hundreds - but probably the two most spectacular sets of such prophecies in the entire Bible are the ones made in Dan 9:24-27, and in most of Dan 11."
Bizzare, surreal, word salad - vague and mostly self-justifying ex post facto.
"2. The abundant testimony available regarding the experience of a personal, loving God in extraordinary forms of mysticism, as well as in more ordinary, everyday states of prayer."
Yes, this is wonderful proof of J-C mythology. What religion doesn't have these experiences, from Hindu to Buddhist to New Age to good old-fashioned LSD trips to simple meditation to a good hike in the wilderness? This is human neurology, and is in no way proof of a "god", much less a J-C god and all the self-contradictory weirdness in the Bible.
"3. Mounting archeological evidence attesting to the historicity of much in the Bible that is casually dismissed as mythical."
This is great. OK... There is a tree outside my house. I climbed into the tree, jumped off, flapped my arms, and flew across the fields. You don't believe me? I can show you the tree. Proof that I can fly! This is precisely analogous to what you're saying.
"4. Supernatural phenomena of many kinds, both divine and demonic in their origins,"
??? "demonic"? WTF are you talking about?
"that natural science is incapable of explaining. Examples include the hosts and wine that have been miraculously transformed into human flesh and blood that can be found even today in many locations in Europe. Another example is the Shroud of Turin, the image of which was created by a supernatural burst of energy at the moment of Christ's rising from the dead. Examples evidencing the activity of a demonic realm include many scientifically unexplainable phenomena associated with the occult."
Natural science is capable of explaining a great deal, but surely there is much that it does not. I would go so far as to say that there is much that it CAN not. But as for using the inexplicable as proof of the J-C God (or any other god), there is a term for that - God of the Gaps. I don't understand phenomenon X, therefore, not only does a "God" exist, but the Judeo-Christian God and all of the Bible is thereby proven to be literally true. This strikes me as utter crap. So long as there is one thing that humanity doesn't understand, this proves not only God, but the J-C god. Give us, and yourself, a break!
"Those who deny the rationality of Judeo-Christian orthodoxy generally studiously ignore all these lines of evidence, as well as others that do not readily come to mind at the moment."
These are not "lines of evidence". They're well-worn and well-refuted apologetics, and have been for decades, indeed centuries. Let me assure you that I have studiously studied the Bible. In fact, I would be willing to bet that I've read the Bible at least as much, and as deeply, as you have. I'm here to tell you that it's a mish-mash of stories and myths and justifications for land grabs and genocides of various sorts, with assorted power trips added on later (see "Paul"). Just like any other "scripture". Jesus (purportedly), said some cool things, though nothing that wasn't being said already. You know, love.
For sure, I do not claim that analytical human rationality can describe and understand the Universe in all its glory. We are talking monkeys, after all. But let's face it... the problems we are faced with are surely not entirely analytical.
But to say that the J-C Bible somehow rates more than any other myth is clearly not rational, whatever else it might be.
- sgage
a) That my own basis for Christian belief lacks rationality; or
b) that you yourself are approaching the matters under dispute with rationality and deliberation.
Here is some ammunition for you. I don't know very much about the bible, but some years ago i was surprised to learn that Sir Isaac Newton did quite some reading into biblical prophecies and suggested that Jews would someday soon have their own land.
I didn't find an awful lot about it on google, but i did find this article that confirm my statement
And i'd like to add that you should not expect people to thrust religious folks testimonies about miracles taking place. I've heard too much rubbish in my life from Christians claiming miracles. Even if one is to accept testimonies i'd be sceptical. It's easy to underestimate peoples ability to set up fake miracles.
And to the believers of materialism, about the dating of Daniels book et al, it's unfair and dishonest to conclude that prophecies were written later that the proposed events just because you personally think prophecy is bs. Occam's razor isn't very relevant in such context. There should be lots of other arguments if one desire to debate the question.
I happen to disagree with that, not least because it's well established the various books of the Bible were written over long periods of time by multiple authors.
However, as it happens, there's actually other evidence for Daniel being written after the events predicted: textual analysis. IOW, the style of the writing is characteristic of later times.
A good book to start with in this regard is Eta Linnemann, BIBLICAL CRITICISM ON TRIAL.
That, i think, is the better manner to debunk prophecy claims from Christians. Much better than just saying i don't believe in prophecy, therefore it's bs.
I'm a bit surprised how much attention religion get on TOD. Then again, most readers are US and religion is more of an issue "over there". Here in Norway we recently had an priest as the prime minister, but public discourse is not very influenced by religion. Public figures practice self censorship on such topics, but religion is not taboo as in France.
Please have more substance in your posts regarding religion. I think it's nice when also the off-topic posts contain information.
Are you suggesting that the chain of events (eugenetics, WWI, Nazi-Germany, holocaust...) that lead to the state of Israel is linked to ideas among biblical scholars?
Remember, if Hitler had for example waited five years before going to war, he'd won. Germany was the center of the scientific community back then. All major papers where written in german, just as they are written in english today. "Everybody" was crazy about quantum mechanics. I'm quite sure that Germany would got the nukes first. Then there would be no Israel.
There is a zillion contra-factual histories that preclude Israel. Thats almost not debatable. Better to go for prophecies->israel being a coincidence, and then argue there is a lot of unlikely events that do take place.
Self-fulfilling prophecy position is an intellectual suicide.
Of course, the modern Jewish state was founded upon apostasy from the God of their fathers (which is the essence of secular Zionism), but that too is Biblically indicated in prophecies such as Ezekiel Ch. 37, and Zechariah Chs. 12 and 14.
But why am I bothering? I am talking to someone who believes, in the face of all evidence, that a) the Bible is true, and b) the US actually has the military power to exterminate whole populations and remake the world. I'd laugh, but it's not funny.
By the way, even many Jews think the establishment of Israel was blasphemous. You can't establish Israel until the advent of the Messiah, which hasn't actually happened yet.
My dad is a Nazi by temperament (and, indeed, lineage), keeps a copy of Mein Kampf at his bedside, and he just loves Israel and the US invasion of Iraq. Doesn't this tell you something about politics and personality types?
Lest you misunderstand (and I have been misunderstood on this point in the past), I do not in the least approve morally of the idea that the US might wipe out entire countries. I merely assert that they have the capacity to do so (a single aircraft carrier battle group out of at least a dozen that the US military disposes over would do the job nicely for most countries), and, more importantly, that there is every reason to believe that both the US elites and the masses eventually will develop the WILL to do so, due to Peak Oil, Global Warming, etc., etc. We marginal figures who post on TOD will be able to do nothing to arrest this dynamic, despite our best intentions (and God knows that I myself would put a stop to all of this myself if I could).
As far as the foundation of the modern state of Israel is concerned: Though I am a Christian and not a Jew, I am in complete agreement with the small remnant of Orthodox Jews who remain fully faithful to the God of their Fathers, and who therefore utterly reject the secular Zionist premise of the modern Jewish state as apostasy. Nevertheless, there is plenty of Old Testament Biblical prophecy indicating that the Jewish nation WILL be refounded in the latter days (i.e., our time) in a state of apostasy. This state of apostasy is clearly indicated biblically, by way of either explicit prediction or implied presuppostion, in Ezekiel 37, Zechariah 12, and Zechariah 14, among other places. It is furthermore predicted (especially in the Zechariah passages) that the Jewish people have yet to pass through a tribulation of a magnitude unprecedented in their 4000 year history on this account.
I ask those of you who scoff at the notion that Biblical prophecy is divinely revealed: Is the idea that the Jewish nation is destined to pass through an unprecedented tribulation really all that implausible, given the current political conjuncture in the Middle East? Is that situation not a powder-keg that will inevitably explode in a wild conflagration in coming decades?
In fact, the very continued existence of the Jews as a distinct people for 2000 years, despite lacking a homeland, is often cited as evidence for the Judeo-Christian God. If purely natural processes had prevailed, the Jews would have been completely absorbed into the the nations to which they were scattered many, many centuries ago. There would remain as little a trace of them today as there does of ancient peoples such as the Hittites.
Even if the New Testament contained accurate fulfilling of prophecies, this could mean that the New Testament, which was compsed in bits up to 110 AD, was written to make it appear that the prophecies were fulfilled - as it was in a few cases.
- A personal loving God, who tolerated Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc is a piece of crock
- Is plain wrong. Archaeological research shows that the Bible is inaccurate myth.
- Read Hume on miracles.
Daniel.9:24 Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.
9:25 Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
9:26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.
9:27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.
Danile 11 reads like bad Nostrodamus, but makes less sense.
The terminus ad quem, or beginning, of these "69 sevens" is the "going forth of the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem." From Nehemiah 2:1-8, this is known to be the Emperor Artaxerxes' decree permitting the rebuilding of Jerusalem, issued March 14, 445 B.C. That is the ONLY historically recorded event that fits the meaning of the verse.
The terminus a quo, or end of these "69 sevens" ends "unto Mashiach Nagid (or "unto Messiah the Ruler"). This refers to Jesus of Nazareth's public revelation of himself as King of Israel to the Jewish people, which happened at the time of His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, riding on the foal of a donkey, just a few days before His death. This occurred on April 6, 32 a.d.
Now here is the amazing thing: The time interval between these dates is EXACTLY 173,880 days. Thus, Daniel predicted not merely the arrival on the scene and subsequent death of the Messianic King, but he predicted the EXACT DATE when this would happen.
For more information on this, see Sir Robert Anderson's late 19th century work THE COMING PRINCE (available in full online; just do a google search), as well as a more recent series of articles on the date of major events in Jesus' life in the journal BIBLIOTHECA SACRA.
These verses also explain why there were such fervent Messianic hopes among the Jews around the time of Jesus' birth. Faithful Jews (such as Simeon in Luke 2:24-35) KNEW this Scripture, and they therefore KNEW that the appointed time for Messiah's arrival was near.
Unfortunately, as Jesus himself lamented on the day of His triumphal entry into Jerusalem as the Messianic King of Israel, the Jewish people, especially the ruling cadres, did not acknowledge or accept Him as King. In consequence, Jesus predicted Jerusalem's ultimate destruction, which indeed took place a bit less than 40 years later (see Luke 19:41-44).
The 70th Week of verse 9:27 is as yet still future, and will terminate with the glorious return of the Messianic King.
most of us are men. Genetically that means we driven by the desire for political power. Given our culture, religion, etc, we have to have some degree of optimism in our "spchiel" in order to acquire more political power.
To do this effectively, we must first (at a subconscious level) decieve ourselves into actually believing the most hopeful version of the future we can convince ourselves of.
This applies to major (alpha) doomers like me too. As an example: I believe that if you establish an off-grid, self-sufficient village in a corner of the world preferrably of the way of the nuclear fallout patterns, then you MIGHT have a chance of eeking out a satisfactory existence.
Sadly, even my optimism may be ungrounded. But hopefully we have at least 5 years before we'll know for sure.
Some will say, "ahh but Matt being all doomy helps sell books so you are probably decieving yourself into being more doomy then is realistic." To which I reply, you might be correct. However, doom sells best when it is within the following equation:
"you are all doomed except for those of you who accept 'X' in which case you are saved and will be very happy!"
"X" can be a religion, a normative political agenda, an alternative economic system, etc.
In my case, "X" is a hump-bustingly hard - and probably short - life sans most if not all of the conveniences of the last 100 years. (http://www.farmlet.co.nz is a good example of what I'm talking about, just take away their electricity and all external inputs) That's only if you're really lucky. If you're not lucky then the best you can hope for is being at ground zero when the nukes drop so you end up dying before you even know what hit you.
=)
Have a nice day!
P.S.
I wish I could decieve myself into believing in a more hopeful vision or the future. I'd be a lot more popular, sell a lot more books, and attract much hotter groupies.
You are correct that human beings deceive themselves at every turn - myself included. That is yet another piece of evidence that goes towards proving my original thesis that humanity has no hope in the face of Peak Oil if it operates purely according to its own devices. I have little doubt that we agree on this.
However, one of the promises of the Judeo-Christian religious tradition is that, with requisite effort according to the traditional counsels of Christian spirituality (best preserved in Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, as opposed to Protestantism), one can acquire the divine grace necessary to overcome the snare of self-deception.
I Don't know whether you will dismiss this as "clap-trap" or not, but there you have it, for what it's worth.
By the way, are you in touch with Mike Ruppert? If so, give him my regards. I don't agree with everything he says, or how he says it (though I do actually agree with much of WHAT he says), but I admire the man for his raw guts. It is a rare and admirable trait.
The UN has started a program to plant 1 billion trees.
Check it out..
matt
Keep those international politicians busy doing something that at least appears to be constructive for a while.
and here is why:
I have been studying the BLP concept since it first began via various websites. I have read some of the theory and white papers. This all began back with Pons and Flesichmann's experiments in cold fusion or 'table top fusion'.
Many of us who worked in the field of engineering and electronics(in IBM) suspected they were on to something. Subsquent experiments such as 'bubble fusion' and others by many also seemed to prove that indeed there was a possiblity of a huge breakthru in this field.
While browsing the BLP hydrino study group ..where a lot of controversy exists I found this and think it worthy enough to post here for the unbelievers and naysayers(I posited once before about BLP and was promptly chastised for it);
Here is the text from the website referenced:
********************
To be published on November 10:
Extraordinary Evidence
Scientists at the U.S. Navy's San Diego SPAWAR Systems Center have produced something unique in the 17-year history of the scientific drama historically known as cold fusion: simple, portable, highly repeatable, unambiguous, and permanent physical evidence of nuclear events using detectors that have a long track record of reliability and acceptance among nuclear physicists.
by
Bennett Daviss and Steven Krivit
Please come back on the 10th. Thank you.
*********************
Here is the URL:http://newenergytimes.com/news/2006/NET19.htm
airdale
To claim your free energy device, just take a short while to fill in this questionaire. You will then be directed to a secure Paypal site where you can order your very own plans to build your own cold fusion reactor.
Conditions apply (like the frikkin laws of physics)
Then please explain where the heat goes? If the electron level drops, there should be a change in heat. When the electron level returns to normal, there should be a change in heat.
So show the heat difference when the 'hydrino' becomes 'hydrogen' again.
If you can't explain it, perhaps you can find a genericlly superior person from your past, detailed research, who can.
"Then please explain where the heat goes? "
Before I wax sarcastic I will answer the question.
The heat is absorbed in the water bath the device is immersed in. Then a calorimeter is used to determine the energy that is created. Any high schooler with basic chemistry could have answered the question.
Sarcasm:
Duhhhhhhh!!
The ignorance of your question astounds me. Your flip stupid inane question qualifies you as part and parcel of the uninformed , who wish to remain uninformed and chunk rocks at anyone who poses an idea that you wish to abuse in order to win favor of the supposed crowd you are attempting to asskiss and suck up to. Exactly who that is is beyond me but in my youth shitforbrain asswipes such as you stalked the schoolgrounds at recess time looking for someone to bully.
Baaaaaaaaa! Asshat.
airdale-- and further your questions tend to the sophmoric such that in the future I won't waste my time.
Baaaa...sheeplet!
I think what he is asking if energy is released by the change in the electrons level, warming the water when the electron goes back to its normal state why does it not absorb the thermal energy again or does it get energy from an outside source. Thermodynamics, nothing is free e=mc2 and all those laws of physics....
matt
Ding
I've yet to see anyone give a thermodynamic treatment of the hydrino to hydrogen conversion. Mills makes all kinds of claims about the energy released when a hydrogen atom becomes a hydrino, but what about the other way.
Why?
(and where the hell is the blacklight power battery that was going to ship in 2007?)
As I recall,and no time to check right now, the state does not revert. New elements are released, perhaps not new but what is termed a hydrino and a plasma exists as well, depending on the setup.
E=MC2? Nothing is free? True and there is no problem with those laws just as fusion releases huge amounts of energy.
Quite frankly if Eric the troll was interested and wished to question the work he simply had to go to the source(website) mentioned or do a simple google on BLP and hydrino study group and then couch his questions.
Instead he chooses to 'shoot from the hip' as is his want.
I merely point out for the group that many folks are working hard and diligently on solutions to our energy crisis.
Mills et at is one group. There have been many who have observed his work and agree that there is energy being produced. Taking it from the lab to the real world is what is being done now, as I read.
If he was a charlatan he would not have a cadre of Phds and men of reputation as investors. He has demonstrated his results. He has not gone public. That is disturbing to many but apparently he wishes to be rewarded for his work by his patents which some have stopped by nefarious means.
Anyway the whole topic of BLP is on the web as well and many many documents. This is not the place to make simplistic and ignorant statements such as Eric the troll persists in doing.
Its just my contribution to the discussion and I wish some here would learn that personal attacks are not conducive to what is coming at us.
When attacked I reply in the same but I do not draw first blood.
The fact that I express personal values is what his attacking is based on. His derision is his whole kit.
If your interested in alternative , new energy sources then there are many websites. Myself I believe in cold fusion and recognize that so far it cannot be reproduced at will and that tends to make the hypocrites come out of the woodwork.
Just as the intricate nature of quantum mechanic cannot be explained with common sense does not mean that its rubbish. We simply do not understand that world totally as yet. We can harness it but we cannot explain it very well.
Example: Shrodingers 'cat in the box' thought experiment and the Double Slit experiment with photons and/or electrons.
Even Einstein had many reservations yet experiments prove much of the QM theory currently held.
airdale
So you have a link to the temp drop that happens when a hydrino becomes a hydrogen atom?
The ignorance of your question astounds me.
Considering in your world a religious-generic group is vastly genetically superior intellectually to others, your evaluations on ignornace is more rantings than reality.
But go ahead. Show how a hydrino becomming a hydrogen atom would not be a heat absorbing event.
Exactly who that is is beyond me but in my youth shitforbrain asswipes such as you
gee, so what you are saying is you have no actual answer?
Or could you not find one generically superior person to explain the matter?
I won't waste my time.
Again, the position of someone who isn't ABLE to defend thier position.
Both myself and Chris Vernon were at this conference which had many interesting papers - two of which I have invited as TOD guest posts. The majority view of presenters and the audience was that peak is close. But there were a couple of dissenting voices that are the focus of this post.
Lets start with a quote from a Shell Reservoir Engineer:
And now Ken Chew - a Director of IHS Energy who own CERA:
And that got me wondering why IHS energy should adopt this stance. Most of the peak oilers at the conference thought that the public should be told the truth on both climate and PO.
Ken Chew presented two sets of worldwide liquids numbers
The Low-end estimate
Worldwide liquids discovered 2.328 billion bbls
Worldwide cumulative production 1.077 billion bbls
Wordwide remaining liquids 1.251 billion bbls
Worldwide liquids depletion 46.3%
And The High End Estimate
Worldwide ultimate 3.965 billion bbls
Worldwide cumulative production 1.077 billion bbls
Worldwide remaining 2.890 billion bbls
Worldwide depletion 27.2%
This high end forecast sees N America as 33% depleted and Europe 36% depleted - and all this was before we went to the pub!
Curiously the Low - end estimate looks quite reasonable whilst the high end looks a bit like fantasy. So my interpretation of Ken Chew's comments is that when production / demand start to fall in 2012+3 years - IHS will explain this away using global warming - Ken call by to chat please - by the way do your clients get refunds if your reports turn out to be bollocks?
Another sublime optimist who presented was Professor Alex Kemp from the University of Aberdeen. Right now I hope to persuade this University to provide me with an honourary research position so I have to choose my words carefully here.
Kemp is an economist - and I have to agree that building price, rig and personnel availability into models is quite important.
Kemp sees UK oil production growing to about 1.95 million bpd by 2007 (next year) and staying at that level till 2008. This is just utter amazing fantasy. Current production is around 1.35 million bpd and we have just one sizeable field to come on next year - Buzzard - that will produce at around 200,000 bpd. UK North Sea production has been falling at a rate of 10% per annum for the last two years and I think it will be lucky if Buzzard actually arrests this decline for I year.
During the panel session no one asked Kemp any questions, so the chair out of sympathy asked if he had anything to say - he indicated that throughout the North Sea growth phase they had always underestimated their forecasts (i.e. they got it wrong) and now in the decline phase they are determined to not make the same mistake - so they are making a new kind of mistake instead?
I don't really know what to say that would be polite so uncharacteristically I will stay quiet. I should add that Kemp did not have much time for what he called single line methodology - ah well.
What I will do is start an occasional post tracking DTI, Kemp and my own forecasts for UK production.
Chew's low-end estimate is not out of line, as you say. Concerning that Peak Oil versus Climate Change statement, the former will certainly have occurred by 2012 while the "slow roasting" from the latter will continue for centuries. What is the source of this inverted logic? People will choose to believe the high-end reserves estimate disregarding all constraints on realistic production flows. Knowing Chew a bit from correspondence, I think what he thinks privately may differ from any public statements he makes as a representative of IHS Energy. Too bad we don't have an informal report on Chew's thinking from the pub.
I got the feeling that Claire Durkin who is head of DTI Energy markets looked worried - she made a diary note to sign up for a TOD account.
As I've said before, the doomers are far too optimistic. Reality is much more scary.
One very serious problem with this Low-end estimate, it completely buys into the vast Middle East reserves fallacy. Was there any discussion about this at the conference?
Proven Reserves
Saudi Arabia 264.3
Iran 132.5
Iraq 115.0
Kuwait 101.5
UAE 97.8
World 1,292.5 (All figures are in billions of barrels.)
The above number is very close to the Low-end estimate of 1,251 billion barrels. Which means all the most of the folks at the ASPO conference believe the vast Middle East estimates. Well, that is if you heard no cries of protest when those figures were posted.
Do you buy those numbers Cry Wolf? Anyone else? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?
One more question. Why was the High-end estimate so unbelievably high. Did many of the folks at the conference buy into the EIA's estimate of vast "reserve growth" and "undiscovered" scenario? Those figures put the ultimate remaining recoverable figures at 2,961.6 billion barrels, very close to the ASPO's High-end estimate of 2,890 remain barrels.
What is going on there?
Ron Patterson
Re: Which means all the most of the folks at the ASPO conference believe the vast Middle East estimates
Euan was at the Oil Depletion conference in London. However, virtually no one at ASPO believed the 1980's revisions, in which reserves were raised to expand production quotas:
Click to Enlarge
The fact that the revised numbers are routinely quoted shows the power of forgetfulness of historical events. Time is long but human memories are short.
Ever though of that?
Maybe things are worse around here than I thought.
Now don't get me wrong, I think its suspicious that their reserves jumped like that, but if they had been increased slightly every year since production began, would anyone seriously question this?
For the record, I don't think anyone is paying you.
And doing so takes up a heck of a lot less space than Hothgor's pointless arguing. And about the same amount of space as you complaining about it.
I don't understand how you and Jack can hold such a double standard. Hothgor starts pointless arguments, lies, stalks westexas, and generally just annoys the heck out of people. But that's not just OK, you support him doing it.
But point out someone trolling and watch out.
No one is trying to stifle discussion of dissension. I personally would like to see more of it around here. But a troll just lowers the signal to noise ratio and that isn't good for anyone.
What "consequences" are you threatening anyway?
No threats. If you cross the line, then you accept the consequences. Your choice. I thought I would warn you, but you are obviously grown up enough not to feel you need such a thing. You never know who your friends might be.
We just like a fair honest debate. Or at least I do. Jack's more nuanced than me. But he's already explained his position several times before.
We've been through the stalking thing already. You don't really understand Kevembuannga. Westexas responds to Hothgar. That's called engaging. Darwinian and Leanan try their hardest to ignore me. There's a huge difference.
There's a reason for why these relationships exist in the form that they do.
It is you, Rethin, who is not adding anything. You have chosen a side. You are just cheerleading. No offense.
Can we get his IP address from the logs? If he is paid, he will probably be logging on from a large company that owns an IP block.
OECD reserves estimates are governed by the SEC. This is a very conservative body which inevitably leads to reserves being underestimated with upgrades year after year as more data becomes available.
ME OPEC reserves are just made up - and don't just need to be reduced gradually but probably axed by around 50%.
This sounds like my next project!
- The PIW article, supposedly based on inside info from Kuwait, that revealed Kuwait's actual reserves are only half the "official" reserves. It caused a political brouhaha in Kuwait, with the MPs demanding the "truth" about Kuwait's reserves, and some demanding that production be lowered, to stretch the reserves further.
- The U.S. survey of Iraq's oil reserves, undertaken after the invasion. It was supposed to be released in 2004, but is still classified. However, the "whisper number" is 47 BBL - less than half the official reserves.
Take out those "political barrels," and the "official numbers" would jive pretty closely with the rumored "actual numbers."Do you know where you heard this? Do you have a reference?
The oil supply tsunami alert
In their low end model these are the depletion figures they see:
N America 85.3%
Latin America 46.8%
Europe 69.5%
FSU 45.2%
Africa 47.4%
ME 29.9%
Asia - Pacific 58.3%
So I guess the ME reserves may be a bit high - they have around 950 million bbls on the chart for produced + remaining
The high end estimate is as follows - again % depleted:
N America 33%
Latin America 32%
Europe 36%
FSU 30%
Africa 34%
ME 22%
Asia - Pacific 47%
Here they have around 1.35 billion bbls in the ME - including produced, discovered, reserves growth and undiscovered.
The other big growths were in N and S America - where large heavy oil / tar sand production is forecast. On the basis of what I heard in Boston I just don't think that is going to happen - not enough gas, not enough water, environmental Aramagedon and not enough light crude for blending. It just doesn't look scalable.
Maybe I should ask Ken Chew to do a guest post?
CW
Were you in Boston?
Don't bother, I already asked.
As an aside, I'm watching the oil price tick higher here - two days after your election. What would happen if it were proven that we have just witnessed one of the biggest market manipulations in history?
Over here, the whole of the UK government (except Balir) are being questioned by police about alegations that the Labour Party accepted loans to fund their last election campaign in exchange for Peerages (getting made a Lord). If this were true then we have a second house, full of Lords who bought their influence, and a government that bought power with the proceeds - this story will have legs.
SAT - if you're around what are your trading thoughts - there's still 6 days to go to market bottom is there not?
Chew is constrained by his current part-time position with IHS Energy. He doesn't feel free to post here. And CERA or Yergin would not do it in any case because Peak Oil is "garbage".
Cry Wolf,
I'm not seeing any indication that oil has bottomed. I think we'll be heading down to another lower-low shortly. The bottoming process will no doubt extend beyond my birthday, not to mention your son's. My only hope to satify your harsh demands is that oil will be passing through $57 sometime on November 15th (please note that I didn't specify a time zone). Otherwise, as we previously agreed, the tuna is yours.
My big picture analysis remains the same. Within the context of declining world liquidity and market anticipation of the coming recession, we will see the following:
Rising Treasuries (check) -- Money flowing into Treasuries will tend to come at the expense of both equities and commodities.
Strengthening Dollar (check) -- The dollar has historically been a safe haven in times of economic uncertainty.
Falling equities (this hasn't happened) -- Some important leading indicators to watch, in my opinion, are SMH (a three month chart shows the support at 33 which has been repeatedly tested of late and, if broken to the downside, would be a significantly bearish signal), and QQQ, which seems to be forming a double top.
Falling commodities -- Aside from oil, commodities really haven't fallen much. I expect this to correct. Most commodities will see much steeper falls from this point forward than oil, since oil has already fallen significantly. This makes it far easier to predict what will happen to say, gold or copper, in the coming months than to oil. The easy money has already been made to the downside on oil.
Of course, all of this could be wrong. I could have my charts upside down, in which case the exact opposite would happen. Then again, if my charts are both wrong and upside down, the above information would still be correct.
I would also like to thank Dave Cohen for his advice on canned tuna. Dave, i'm planning a massive switch to canned salmon in about a week. Thanks for the heads up.
http://www.ppsf.com/products/canned_salmon.aspx
Tuna of course is a magnificent ocean fish while salmon are reared in cages eating their own shit and vast amounts of antibiotics. Which brings me to this itch that I have - I've been feeling like Neo for a few weeks now - where does this tuna thing come from.
As a counter argument to first paragraph, a little bit of investigation of IHS propoganda is detailed some where below. In terms of staying objective, I feel I'm always pulled upwards by the optimists but if they turn out to be telling lies then the downward reaction would be severe - in which case I may end up like Westexas.
At the end of the day there are many one off events that might send oil to $100 tomorrow.
Thanks CW
You'll have to take that up with your drinknig buddy, Dave Cohen.
Don't worry. It's good quality stuff. You won't be disappointed.
sockeye salmon canned.
Yes, it is. This is true of other types of salmon as well.
The anti-salmonite profiling and hysterics present in Cry Wolf's post (tuna are a, "magnificent ocean fish," while salmon, "eat their own shit") are obvious for all to see.
Only thing I really wanna know is how you get Feta cheese. Can't get a decent salad without that. And Black olives.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601083&sid=aQVfGxQ8eecc&refer=currency
Australian Dollar Gains on Speculation of China Diversification
I'm wondering whether this announcement is a blip, or if we'll see China accelerating (and other foreign banks) accelerating away from the dollar.
I do find it difficult to reconcile a slowing economy (housing bubble) with high oil prices. However, the Thanksgiving travel season is coming up, shouldn't that have an impact?
I'm very bearish on the dollar long-term, but i think we will continue to be in a medium-term uptrend through at least the first few months of next year. With commodities, the opposite is true -- we're experiencing (or in some cases, are about to experience) a short-term pullback within the context of a long-term bull market.
Any idea why Saudi Arabia admitted to a 5 to 12 percent decline rate in all their existing fields if they still have over 70% of their oil left in the ground. One does not begin to decline at such a rate until they are well past their peak.
Ken Chew, or whomever came up with those figures are completely out of touch with reality. The entire world, and perhaps even a majority of peak oilers, have heard those silly Middle East reserve numbers so many times that they have been brainwashed into believing them.
Ron Patterson
However, it is possible that having acknowledged the official reserves anomalies - and discredited them, they then go on to use them in their own forecasts.
OK Ron, I've had a couple of glasses of wine by now but I've looked at Ken Chew's charts in more detail.
In the low case, he has one column titled Middle East - cummulative production is just short of 300 billion bbls. The full column is around 975 billion bbls. Leaving reserves at around 670 billion for the Middle East.
The bp stat review (which everyone knows promotes politically grossly inflated figures for ME OPEC reserves) has these figures for 2005:
Iran 137.5
Iraq 115
Kuwait 101.5
Oman 5.6
Qatar 15.2
Saudi Arabia 264.2
Syria 3
UAE 97.8
Yemen 2.9
Other 0.1
Total 742.8 billion bbls
So what has happened here - Ken Chew shows a chart for Kuwait reserves that agrees with IHS numbers until 1984 - and thereafter IHS numbers show a steady decline and the official reserves are hiked to the point that by 2005 Kuwait official reserves are about double what IHS claim to be using. The audience is comforted by the fact that IHS are on top of the ME OPEC reserves scandle. But then IHS go on to more or less use the inflated reserves estimates they have just discredited in the IHS forecasts for Global reserves.
Ron this appears to be scandalous. If I had ever purchased data from IHS energy I would be instructing my lawyers at this point to investigate these numbers.
I will send this comment to The Energy Institue in London and ask them to look over these numbers with a view to considering whether or not IHS energy has deliberatley missled the audience at this conference.
Does anyone have an email address for Ken Chew?
We are sleepwalking into a nightmare. And the signs are obvious but no one is paying any attention to them.
Ron Patterson
Great post you had yesterday(?), the one where you provided an overview and argued peak-now.
It's easy to just stare at the numbers and forget that one also can accumulate information by making fair interpretations of the agents involved.
Truly a great post - thanks!
I've been reading Simmons tonight. I originally went in to get a paragraph or two on Russian production for a piece I was hoping to have ready for tomorrow, but might be delayed. I ended up rereading some old history starting on page 43.
I was impressed by your statement because it seemed to echo something Simmons said at least three time in the ensuing 20 pages. Yet he was more pointed. He talked of analysts, observers, and experts. But the hubris and the contempt are the same. One question - when you said "everyone" - was I included in that?
I've never heard a good argument in that direction, I'm curious. I've heard plenty of reasons why they are spurious.
Thanks for the informative post.
Torion
Good night with the pilot and others I thought. I'm away to have almighty good fun with the energy editors of my local press - and the politicians who seem to believe them.
CW
As I understand it oil companies cut their profit margins heavily in the months before the elections. Can anyone out there verify this for me and explain why they would choose to lose money right before the elections because right now...it is just too much of a coincidence to see crude/gasoline rising starting the night of the election.
In regard to recent prices, I have been predicting a renwewed bidding war for declining exports in the fourth quarter for several months. And Robert, I beleive prior the election, predicted rising prices based on his analysis of the import/inventory data.
I also thought that the runup in the DOW was a bunch of fluff running up to the election and low and behold...the DOW is deflating. Is this another coincidence?
If it is not a coincidence, it makes me sick and is criminal.
As I said, let's look at the numbers in odd numbered versus even numbered years. Any volunteers?
Regardless of what "Big Oil" may or may not done, I was predicting a renwewed bidding war in the fourth quarter some time ago, and the reduced import pattern started showing up in the week ending 9/29 (right before the start of the fourth quarter).
The hard, cold reality is that if American consumers wish to continue consuming petroleum products at their current rate, they are going to have to outbid other consumers. This is the pattern that we are going to see, IMO, for quite some time going forward--a series of bidding cycles for rapidly declining net oil exports.
Robert...I'll shut up if you can shed some light on this.
WT..I know you respect Robert and I do too, but he can be helpful answering this question if he cares to.
I anxiously await his return. I'm sorry WT, I don't mean to make this into a political stink, but the timing is just to blatant here. If prices had waited a week or two to rise, I wouldn't be so suspicious.
Click on prices, then gasoline. I looked at monthly prices for July versus October, without rounding off. The results:
2006: Down by 73 Cents
2005: Up by 43 (Hurricanes)
2004: Up by 9
2003: Up by 5
2002: Up by 5
2001: Down by 11 (Post 9/11)
2000: Down by 2
You can't argue that prices were down before the 2002 or 2004 elections, although they were down by a tiny amount in 2000.
However, what we are left with is a gigantic drop in gasoline prices from July to October of this year. Perhaps it was everything. The lack of hurricanes, the Goldman Sachs thing, "Big Oil" cutting prices by deliberately reducing their profit margins, a misunderstanding of the true inventory picture, who knows?
In any case, no matter what, the industry is going not going to be terribly popular.
Guess I better start looking back into getting a monthly bus passes again.
I honestly cant understand why you guys are putting such stock into WT predictions on this matter. But I guess I will make one of my own:
Every winter for at least the next 10 years, oil and gas prices will increase during the 4th quarter.
If you do not understand something the best thing is to assume your nemesis has CoNtrOl - there are maNipuLAtorz behind everything...
Simple answer and it makes the head-aches go away too!
Now we know where the idea of a Jehovah and an Allah and all the other goofy Supernatural Mommies came from.
My personal explanation of the rise in the price of crude in what appears to be an economy entering recession is that the price has everything to do with people's expectations and little to do with supply and demand. Since so many folks thought the bugaboos of the Bush league were manipulating prices to go down until the election, they bought future's on the expectation of that price hike. And, lo and behold, it happened. A self-fulfilling prophecy situation, sort of like the gigantic price increases of the Katrina/Rita hurricane.
Logic couldn't predict that either. Why would refineries shutting down cause a rise in the price of crude? The Gulf is gas prone, not a huge factor in domestic production, and demand for oil had decreased due to the refineries coming off line. I understand that the price for refined products were justified somewhat by the shortages due to refining capacity shut down, but why crude? A mystery of energy ignorance combined with psychology and 20 something hedge fund investors and their mullets ("sophisticated investors")
I think anyone who tries to tie short-term behaviour to datapoints on charts or paranoid theories is delusional. My best guess is that oil prices will go up to $70/bbl or so until the next geopolitical/climate crisis, then will rise to the $85-90 level for the 2007 average. I sacrificed a goat and read its entrails while eating Cabrito for that prediction. So, boys and girls, place your bets and take your chances!
I suspect these things had some effect, and that at least 1 & 2 were intended to lower gasoline prices.
If this is incorrect, someone please correct me.
If it won't work, ipso facto it didn't cause it. Prices are going up because investors are sheep chasing high returns.
The problem with accusing the Republicans wrongfully is that the paranoia can then be used as a refutation of the real horrors that they have perpetrated "Don't pay attention to him/her-its all crazy". I despise them for 655,000 Iraqui dead in a war based on lies, I hate them for destroying Habaeus Corpus and sabotaging free elections, I think cutting taxes on rich people and corporations while our currency becomes worthless is nothing but theft from the good people in this country. The truth is good enough reason to hang 'em. Lets not discredit this by engaging in paranoia.
I don't think that's what he said. I believe he was reporting that he didn't observe such manipulation in his company, and that he didn't think oil companies had the power to manipulate the markets.
That's very different from the power of government, or market regulation (whether governmental or quasi-governmental, like index composition). For instance, refilling the SPR would add demand of perhaps 100,000 BPD for 5 months: that would have a significant effect. Blending rules, AFAIK, can change gas prices by 20-30 cents per gallon pretty easily. Finally, it's clear that the oil futures market was anticipating disruptions, and adding a significant price premium. I believe it's clear that the gasoline index change had a significant effect on the futures market: the speculation is whether there was a link to government.
I would also add that RR sees oil company middle management. That's pretty different from the machinations of company executives (the Lee Raymonds), especially with their governmental counterparts.
I agree that in the long-run the fundamentals are, well, fundamental.
Not a coincidence, yes it's sickening, and yes it's criminal.
No, there will be no accountability.
There's a simple word for what's going on. Corruption.
It is not unique to either party.
And anyone who didn't see it coming shouldn't be investing in anything besides a savings account.
- sgage
-C.
I was actually trying to be cute with the link...having a few capt'n morgans you know... I've been busy. My company I started in Jan. of this year has really taken off. I will pop in from time to time until end of Q1/07. Hopefully by then I can come up for air.
-C.
Sincerely,
Donald Rumsfeld(Somebody's gotta teach me how to do graph's - You fuckers at TOD ruined my career ;) - Rummy)
-C.
(Text translated by Google Translate, from a story published in www.azzaman.com on Nov 8)
Article also notes:
- departure of large number of oil industry workers
- Iraq in its current state is not an attractive investment opportunity for petro companies with the experience to do the job
Nothing we couldn't guess from afar. The ongoing political debate about partitioning Iraq in to three regions may fuel the problems in the south as well.I have mixed emotions about continuing to respond our new friend, Hothgor. Whether he is a paid Cornucopian, or a free lance Cornucopian, he is apparently determined to keep posting. The problem is that if we don't respond to his posts, someone reading the blog may think that his misleading and/or false statements are accurate. Also, he is actually a pretty good example of the quality of the opposition in the Cornucopian camp. This represents somewhat of a quandary. In any case, we have discussed three principal areas so far--Natural Gas; The HL Method and my Export Land Model. A brief review follows.
Natural Gas
Hothgor asserted that even if oil was near the peak, natural gas (NG) would save us, via abundant LNG imports. He cited the example of US NG production, which he claimed did not peak until about 2001.
After several rounds of exchanges, and after I laboriously went through the process of showing him precisely where to find the data and showed him a statement from the EIA that US NG production peaked in 1973, he finally agreed that he was wrong. I also sent him a recent EB article on LNG that questioned the whole LNG premise and that suggested that NG production will peak much sooner that everyone thinks, much like what we saw in the US, where NG peaked three years after the oil peak. (Hothgor was using gross gas production numbers, which are meaningless since they count recycled gas in gas caps in oil fields.)
The HL Method
I have previously outlined the problem with extrapolating three data points, which should be self-evident to almost anyone. The key point is that these inflection changes seem to be a characteristic of regions that are about to peak.
In any case, Hothgor used his own guesstimated cumulative production number for 1980 and earlier production in attempt to show that Khebab's Qt estimate was wrong. I suspected that Hothgor's guess was (conveniently) too high. (A higher earlier cumulative production number flattens the line, and increases the Qt estimate.)
I was just going through my e-mails, and Khebab confirmed what I suspected. Hothgor's guess was (conveniently) 100 Gb too high. After initially refusing to use the same data as Khebab (Hothgor stated that he didn't want to do it, because he would get the "same results" as Khebab), he did use the same data as Khebab (BP's C+C+NGL data) and got about the same results.
The Export Land Model
There are two aspects to this debate--the HL reserve estimates and the US import numbers. I made my January, 2006 prediction--that we would see falling net oil exports this year--based on an analysis of Khebab's HL plots of the top exporters. I also pointed out that net exports from these countries would tend to fall faster than their production falls. A real life example of this is the UK, which has gone from exporting about 1.2 mbpd in 1999 to now importing over 400,000 bpd.
The US (total petroleum, four week running average) import numbers can be quite confusing. Do we look at year over year? Year to date? Relative to an index month? Several people attacked the declining export thesis by focusing on the import number question.
I have primarily focused on this year versus the 12/30 number, since 12/05 was the highest C+C production number so far. I did start comparing year over year numbers, since we are now seeing lower year over year numbers and not just lower relative to 12/30. In any case, 68% of the total weekly petroleum import numbers are below the 12/30 number, even as oil prices have been 50% to 100% higher than the previous record (nominal) high price.
However, the key point that I made in January is that the top three net exporters are more depleted than the world is overall. Based on the HL method, KSA is about 58% depleted, and Russia is about 85% depleted (at least from existing producing basins). As I predicted, both KSA and Russia are now showing signs of declining production.
Hothgor's response to this is my all time favorite Hothgor post. An excerpt from his post yesterday follows:
Of course, KSA--depending on what they were actually producing of late---is down by 5% to 10% from last year's high production, but the Russian decline this year might be in the 0.5% range. But I love Hothgor's description of the "pathetic" decline rate of "only" 0.5% per year.
First, this is declining production after a period of the highest (nominal) oil prices in history. But more importantly this was almost exactly the same "pathetic" decline rate that we saw in Texas in 1973, the first year of its terminal decline, when production declined by 0.6% from its all time peak. As I have said, Texas--like KSA--has also "voluntarily" cut its production (by 75% in the case of Texas) because we also could not find buyers for all of our oil.
The strongest argument is higher prices. Earlier this year, when oil was over $70 in the US, the Saudis claimed that they could not find buyers for all of their oil--"Even their light, sweet oil."
Now, back to the HL model and our historical analogues.
Texas, in response to 1,000% increase in oil prices, launched the biggest driling effort in its history, which added 14% more producing wells and had the net effect of reducing production by 30% over a 10 year period.
Mathematically, KSA is where Texas was when it started declining, they are showing lower production in response to higher prices and they are talking about the biggest drilling effort in their history. The problem for KSA is that they--the world--are far more exposed to a decline/crash of their biggest field than was Texas.
Yes, but taking this at face value would simply indicate that the oil is not withheld, but unsold. It's not implausible that they could have sold more if they had offered it at $30. There is evidence that some demand destruction did indeed occur at $70.
There's plenty of 'demand destruction' even at lower prices (than the current ~60). It's just that people don't tend to lay down and die immediately after seeing higher prices. They will initially pay and suffer financially, while hoping things get better soon. Eventually the tolerance dissipates either by loss of hope or financial ruin. We haven't really even begun to see the real damage caused by higher oil prices. My guesstimate is that it will take about another 6 months before we really begin to see how these prices really affect, but by then we are probably at or over 70$ again (and note that that's even before the driving season). Since I offer no proof whatsoever you can freely classify this under the category of 'unfounded wild guesses'.
(Yes, I do believe the prices can go much higher than that during the winter, but that is entirely irrelevant to this particular example. In the 'real world' it would make things 'worse' ofcourse)
Obviously something is wrong with what they're saying. Couldn't it be that they were lying about being unhappy about high prices, and that they weren't really trying to sell all of their production (which would have put downward pressure on prices)? They do desperately need all the revenues they can get to keep their citizens happy (AFAIK average KSA income has dropped by more than 50%). That would also be consistent with their manipulating prices downward a bit before the US election...
To me, thats a sign that he is losing this argument.
And for the record, you cant call someones un-credible when you cant even spell their name correctly.
For the record: I am NOT a Cornucopian. I do not believe that the invisible hand will continue to find more oil. I do not believe that our reserves are plentiful to last for the next 10000000000 years. I do not believe that higher prices will allow us to extract ever increasing amounts of oil indefinately. I have stated repeatedly that I see the peak of oil in the 2010 to 2015 range.
REPEATEDLY
2010 to 2015 = peak oil
REPEATEDLY
2010 to 2015 = peak oil
REPEATEDLY
2010 to 2015 = peak oil
REPEATEDLY
Has that sunk in yet?
Hothgor on NG
Dry gas production did not peak until 2001. The charts on this very drumbeat show that and you had no problem with them else you would have jumped on them like a ravenous predator to devour their false statement. Once again, you are continuing to put words in my mouth. What I HAVE stated is that there are vast quantities of gas in the world, specifically the ME, and that this means that undoubtedly, LNG exports will increase, and LNG imports in the US will increase. This is common sense and should be irrefutable to anyone with an ounce of common sense.
Hothgor on HL
I stated repeatedly that I did not have access to cumulative production of oil and NG prior to 1980 and 1970 respectively. I asked repeatedly for someone, such as yourself to provide these numbers. Repeatedly you have refused to do so so I was forced to examine other HLs and cumulative production charts to come up with a ballpark figure.
The figures I used also worked very well with your own stated litmus test in that they matched Khebab's own HL models. Additionally, he commented that he himself had no problems at all with my cumulative production figures to date, and felt that I did a more then adequate job at crunching the numbers and replicating both his and other HLs.
My 100 Gb higher figure was on the total liquids produced to date. Since neither you or Khebab can come up with a set standard for what total liquids encompasses, you can not use such an instance as proof of my incompetence. Remember, the PO HL models RELY on ambiguity in regards to what resources are used. Various HLs to date include Crude, C+C, and C+C + NGL. My total liquids HL was an attempt to include all unconventional sources into one graph to help us paint a more accurate picture of the world, a fact that you conviently chose to ignore on your own rants.
The Export Land Model
Your year over year oil import statements are BOGUS. They are NOT based on any facts whatsoever, and SEVERAL people pointed this out to you. Additionally, your statement that oil imports have declined dramatically since last year was a HUGE MISTAKE on your part, as you were trying to base your data sets on last years production without taking into account the enormous supply disruptions we experienced due to both Katrina and Rita.
However, when looking at the total picture, you come up with this:
Not only that, but you also have to look at YTD net oil imports:
I don't know about any of you, but I certainly don't see any reason to sound the alarms over our oil imports, despite the fact that westexas states repeatedly that global exports is falling. Our oil imports very clearly have remained fairly constant.
It doesnt matter if 68% of the weeks this year had less imports then last years, so long as the other 32% have imports that exceed last year and make up for this shortfall. Again, looking at the chart you can see graphically why such measures are meaningless.
As for my pathetic decline rate, doomers and gloomers, including yourself, have been harping that the world will see a decline in oil extraction rates of 5% or more every year after peak oil. And for the record, total oil produced to date is down 0.13% compared to last year, even less then my comment yesterday stated. And there are 4 more months of production data that has yet to be released. I suspect that average oil production for this year will be higher then last years, meaning the peak hasn't hit just yet.
And I want to once again show the entire TOD community what 'peaks' we are talking about to help put their global perspective into context:
Sorry Oil CEO!
And your comments on Texas voluntarily reducing its production because it could find no buyers is yet again another attempt by you to puff smoke up the PO communites collective butts. We talked about repeatedly how 70$ a barrel did indeed cause demand destruction world wide. If demand is down, and you are producing the same rate as before, you very clearly wont be able to find any buyers for your oil. The demand simply isn't there!
I'm sorry westexas, but sticking a feather up your butt doesn't make you a chicken, and continually harping that peak oil was last year wont make it true if it is not.
Since you are using a chart that I produced I feel I should speak up since you are not being accurate. WT and I had this discussion yesterday. My chart does not represent his view since my chart is crude only. His view is crude + products. When I made the chart I asked if it was correct in representing his view. It wasn't, which was my mistake.
You are again doing yourself harm by again misrepresenting peoples views and data. You either did not read the rest of the thread under my post yesterday when this was discussed or you chose to ignore what was said.
Regards
Shawn
If or total petrol imports are falling, its only logical to assume that our commercial demand is also falling. If our own demand is falling, then our economy is tanking. If the economy is tanking, then our consumption of crude oil must likewise fall as there will be a lack of demand. Additionally, petrol products and crude oil are intricately linked with one another. If exports fall, so would petrol products. If petrol products fall, likewise so much exports. You can mutually exclude one from the other, thats just not rational.
So far, exports have not fallen, and I doubt very seriously that WT has the facts to back up his claims that total petrol imports are down. Thus far, his only statement to that effect was that we have imported on average 500,000 bpd less this year then we did last year, a figure that is in direct opposition to the YTD imports and your weekly import chart. In any case, if imports in the US are down by 500,000 bpd, thats around a 4% decline, not the 14% he was ranting about.
2 + 2 != 3
Re: Four Week Running Average, Total US Petroleum Imports
As I said, looking at comparable time periods, we are down about 1.9 mbpd over last year and down about 500,000 bpd over 2004, while consumption is up over 2004's level.
"Please don't dominate the rap, Jack, if you've got nothing new to say."
Bertha dontcha come around here, anymore... ;)
I'm not trying to put you on too much of a spot too much Robert, but we had falling inventories prior to the election that did NOT cause the prices to budge at all, so I don't think that can explain it.
It's all good now, we just have to deal with fossil fuel depletion, climate change, and pending economic hardship as the empire collapses. Should be no problem now!
I think what we are seeing in that the old guard got scared of the overt, in-your-face approach of the Neocons and pulled in the reins. They want to go back to enforcing hegemony through financial/economic warfare behind the scenes. For those of us in the West, this should buy us a bit more time for personal preparations before the overt symptoms get really ugly.
Some good reads:
Election 2006: Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me
The Real Meaning of a Democratic Sweep: NeoCons or Liberals?
The 2006 elections and the coming train wreck: Does it matter if we slow down the train?
Automakers see friends in the Democrats
IF they were to target assistance to US carmakers in sensible directions (smaller cars; diesels; electrics) then it would be a good thing. But if it's subsidies for more of the same...
I drove Fords (and a couple of Chevys) up until the age of 50. Wanted to do the patriotic thing and "Buy American". Finally threw in the towel and bought my first Japanese car - an Acura TSX and love it.
If they do get any Govt protection then the crap they turn out will just get worse and the taxpayers will subsidize it - and the union goons.
Hey that's right, the world is bipolar!
Watch out for those wild mood swings.
I have been writing a LOT, 10 hours days or more. I don't always use a pin, er pen, er pixel. I use whatever I have handy, I am creative.
I am creative to the point that I don't sleep for days on end. 100 hours is my max to this point of no sleep, No REM Rapid Eye Movement,, I have another name for REM but my notes are not with me and I can not remember what it is, so I will get back to you on it, You'll like it.
I was told to post my writings and poems to a forum for that sort of thing by some poster a few months ago when me and Don The Sailorman were talking about it. You know that was a lie.
What are you reading?
My thoughts downloaded to my pixels, to your pixels, to your head!!
We are all writers. Some of us doing it for a living, some for a hobby.
My thoughts for today are, many and far between and I will use my best brevity.
Rumesfeld is out! Is he, he was in skull and cross bones, I think, I don't know, but if he was, then is he out of power? I don't Know, I don't Care. Do You?
The cliff is coming on strong and I have climbing inside my head, I can't get over the fence yet, I am fat and overweight and I can't I know it, and I can I know it.
I have weighted in at 185 pounds as an adult 25 years old. I could run full tilt up seven flights of stairs, carrying a pack, something in my hand(s) and carry on a running conversation all at the same time, get to the top run right in my suites door, Middle one, Turn to someone and say, We were slow today, I can breath!!. I am I guess 320 to as little as 280, today I got less than one hour of REM, Two sessions, Exhaustion and induced trance (the cat got to nosy and I had to move to pet her, I am working on it, Trance while doing something, it's possible, cause it's also not possible.
We have big bad discussions on here and I have always wondered Why? We can't agree, that is the problem we are all facing we can't agree, do this do that, nukes , not nukes, wind, people like wind, I love wind. People like Sun, I love sun too, what's the other one, two, ten, You don't know do you?
I do!
I found out this morning in a Logic puzzle I was trying to solve, I love logic, It explains everything. Do you read that? It explains everything!!
I am a Christian I love logic.
I do not want to warp your minds this early in the morning for some of you Chaos theroy is a fact for some of you chaos is not anything at all, just mumbo jumbo.
I know, it was to me too, till ,, um um now. this Infinity.
Logic says Logic/no logic.
Did you see that?
logic / no logic
Both are there, they can't be but they are, we call them paradox. they are pural and they are singular and we have grammar to say that two of them look like this and one looks like that, it works.
But it does not work,
Thats the paradox.
I am a CHRISTIAN I LOVE LOGIC.
Explain that.
I know,
Do YOU?
I don't Care.
I have a busy day, Chaos is calling for a hot drink of wind and rain and sun. The three renewables.
Charles E. Owens Jr.
Author at Large, aka Dan Ur
Job, I don't have one, but today I was a beat poet at 3 am, a martial arts crazy guy waving at the cars going by, Neighbors some know me, some don't I wave at all of them.
And just now I was a poster on The Oil Drum.
He, he, he, isn't there an oxymoron buried in that statement somewhere?
Ron Patterson
I took sentencial logic from the same proffesor I had for world theology, I don't get your point why is a christian or muslim or any other religous person more or less logical? Don't take potshots prove to me logically god does not (or does) exist, I'll buy you a beer.
matt
Did I say that? I don't think so. I don't think any religion is any more or less logical than another.
Matt, the debate is not about the The Cosmological Argument, which is all about whether a higher (creative) intelligence exist or not. (Some people use the word "God".) That is philosophy. That is a valid argument.
It is about religion. That is a belief in a personal deity that listens to personal prayers and grants favors according to His, (he is male of course), wishes. And of course he looks upon those who do not believe in Him with extreme disfavor. Some even believe he will torture these poor heretics forever. One can argue that such a being exist or not, but that is not philosophy, it is religion. Religion and philosophy are two entirely different things. And that difference is religion is immune to arguments of logic, philosophy is not.
Ron Patterson, who has spent much of his life wasting time. ;-)
Logic and religion? If you believe and are wrong you go nowhere. If you don't and are wrong you go to hell.
I don't believe in hell either just logically it makes more sense to believe from that perspective (not fear of hell but that we might be more than a biological accident)
matt
I can't recall enough of it to write anything that is rational. I will retrieve it from the library later.
I think it was somthing along the lines of: because god is defined as existing and cannot be disproved, the concept of god is meaningless...or something.
The Non-existance of God, despite its promising title, also yielded no clear logical arguement concerning the existance of god.
I personally consider the second law of thermodynamics to disprove the existance of god. Entropy always increases; thus, if god did exist, as time approaches infinity, god would cease to exist. If god exists, god cannot cease to exist, by definition. Thus, 'god exists' must be false.
One can argue that the laws of thermodynamics do not apply to god. If this is true then god does not exist for this universe. The existance of god for another universe is ignoratio elenchi, it has as much importance as the existance of god in the universe of an MMORPG or other fictional reality.
Unfortunately, that is not the logical proof you requested. My apologies. You might wish to view the Wikipedia alticle.
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Yes.
Yes.
Sudoku.
It proves our universe is built of 9 digits: 1-9.
It proves that a 9 by 9 matrix has 81 squares.
Yes.
Yes.
Thank God I'm an aetheist.
(BTW, I'm not picking on any one religion. We all have religions: belief in Adam Smith, belief in "science", "progress" or "technology" as understood by the lay populace, etc.)
Go see a doctor.
I'm not a doctor. I have had a variety of experience, having been around for 54 years. Going without sleep over 4 days is a primary medical symptom. Massive weight change is a prrimary medical symptom. Both are more than merely something to note in passing, they are plain dangerous. Aside from having a bit of fellow feeling for Charles, I bloody well don't want to meet him while he's operating a car after 4 days with no sleep. I don't even want to run into him while he's operating his body with no sleep.
Charles needs to get to a doctor. So does OilCEO.
Those two together just about sum up peak oil in cute 30 and 15 second spots respectively.
However it seems Helium comes mostly from natural gas, and it could potentially be collected from nuclear reactors.
Any other alternative sources of helium people know of?
The only field I know about is in the Panhandle of Texas, but I'm sure someone will inform me differently if I'm wrong. The McFaddin family of Beaumont, on whose land Spindletop was discovered, own the ranch in the Panhandle where helium is produced.
Interestingly enough, helium detection was often used to detect for oil and NG fields. Helium on earth is not used in any biological process, and is found in minute quantities in ocean water and in blood. Helium is light enough to not be captured by the earths gravity well, so it floats off after a time in the atmosphere. Helium is produced deep in the earths core via the radioactive decay of heavy elements. Being far lighter then other materials, it rises up and is trapped in NG and oil fields.
Hope that helps :)
Thanks thats what I suspected. I can't help thinking that as aviation fuel costs soar post-peak, air-ships/blimps/zeppelins will be flying across the Atlantic again.
I'm slightly concered about the Helium supply however given a possible peak in gas supplies.
Nuclear reactors which produce Helium sound possible but probably a long way off given design, build and bureaucracy lead times!
I think nuclear reactors only produce whiffs of the stuff.
I seem to recall a few ago the Bush-the-Lesser regime killed a helium stockpile to save 0.5 billion $ per year, so it gets pissed off in party balloons instead. How like them.
If we're going to fly in a post-peak oil future, I think we'll have to re-visit hydrogen to float airships. Does anyone have insight whether safety features necessary to prevent another Hindenberg are feasible?
Then again, without growth, what will make the economy float?
Hydrogen in an air-ship is quite hard to ignite & burn.
I don't have ready references to this and am not inclined to go searching. But I think it important that we know that the prevailing point of view may be very wrong.
I just thought with all of our modern technology everybody raves about, it should be feasible and economic to build a safe, hydrogen-filled airship.
Why am I writing in this dead thread. Why are YOU reading it?
Helium will diffuse through anything, which is why those helium balloons always fall to the ground after a day or two. Helium is diffusing through the earth's crust below my feet, into the atmosphere, as I type this. However, certain harder substances tend to trap it a little better than others, which is why it is often found with natural gas. Helium is a gas, natural gas is a gas, and they both tend to get trapped in the same places.
Hydrogen is an alternative. I suspect that it has much better lifting power per sq meter due to its lower mass but someone else will need to do the number crunching on that one.
So Hydrogen has only a small advantage over Helium...
Hydrogen has a density of 0.000089 g/ml, Helium 0.00018, and Air 0.00128
Thus Hydrogen will lift (128 - 8.9) = 119.1 units of weight
and Helium (128 - 18) = 110 units, for any given volume.
Although this does not seem a great difference, after the weight of the airframe and cover are taken into consideration, the difference in cargo carrying capacity is a far greater percentage.
Only the Hindenburg factor to worry about then...
Cargolifter
I would have a tough time spending a few days, weeks taking the airship to India. It would kill off air-travel.
I would also assert that the vast form-factor (because of the huge volume of gas required) for the airship would cause a huge huge increase in drag and exponential increase in fuel consumption, at any reasonable speed (& that includes cruising speeds of land based cars and trains).
My idea is to have huge airships filled with methane, CH4, with a lifting power of 0.485 kg per cubic meter, or about 48% of the lift of helium. These automated airships would ride the winds on long, slow, low energy journeys using accurate weather forecasts, moving the natural gas from places like Qatar to places like New England. Backhauling the gas envelope would be the major chunk of transport energy expenditure.
This could be more efficient than LNG tankers, would need less infrastructure to support, and could deliver NG inland, not just to coastlines.
Also, it's a damn shame that we're throwing our limited supply of helium away in "party balloons".
I did not see your post until after I had responded. Sorry for the duplication and the additional clutter generated by this explanation/apology.
chemE
Roscoe Bartlett (x-R) and Tom Udall (x-D)?
We'll see.
And then, this vision struck me:
That would definitely be a show stopper...don't ya think?
I thought this was rather funny.
Also it was pointed out that Aug-Sept is the period when best weather allows maintanance etc - however the year on year figures would smooth that out.
At any rate this means that both the latest UK and Norwegian figures from the North Sea are absolutely dire. The UK is quite clearly going to be a large importer of oil this year - and as Cry Wolf points out, Buzzard wont stem the decline by more than a year or so. When are the DTI going to publicly admit that there forecast for the UK being an exporter till 2010 is defunct?
On a seperate note I followed the comments above with interest as to looking at what the Saudi's and OPEC Do rather than what they SAY.
Well I'm interested in the change in the tone of dialogue coming from OPEC as regards the oil price level. In the first half of 2005 I well remember OPEC officials and Saudi mouthpieces harping on that their approx target for oil was $30-40, even as oil started its climb towards $50 and beyond -and they gave the firm impression they would pump as much as they could to get it back to those lower levels. At the time they must have been concerned that higher prices would knock demand flat and stimulate the rise of alternatives.
Fast forward 18 months, and oil falls from a peak of $78 down past $60 and all of a sudden the same folk are getting twitchy and are pledging to defend $60 (which it now looks will happen with or without action from them).
So what happened in the interim? Did they lose their fear of how high oil prices would damage the demand side/strengthen alternatives? Did they realise that these fears dont matter anymore? Have they worked out that there is insufficient time left before peak for alternatives to eat into the demand side anyway?
Or is there no real thought process going on at all in the higher circles of OPEC/SA, and they are just event driven now?
For the first nine months of the year, Denmark's production is 10.5% down on last year (even before the September numbers, it was down 8% on last year). This is a much faster decline than 2005's decline, when there was just a 3% fall on the peak year, 2004.
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/55077
Ron Patterson
Uh, no, that's the way it's supposed to work.
Won't it be great when Wall Street gets to invest your "private social security" account? Because they will make the right investments and - because you would get it wrong - the laws will be written so they get to do it for you. They are professionals, after all.
cfm in Gray, ME
The viseo is still on huffington.com though.
AmericaBlog
9 Nov 06
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/11/cnn-tells-youtube-to-pull-down-video.html
CNN tells YouTube to pull down video outing GOP party head Ken Mehlman
by John [Aravosis] in DC - 11/09/2006 02:24:00 PM
I just got a cease-and-desist letter from YouTube, see below, regarding my
CNN footage I posted. The footage, you'll recall, was from Larry King Live
last night in which Bill Maher outed Republican Party chair Ken Mehlman as
gay. It seems that CNN has suddenly decided that it no longer wants
bloggers, or YouTube, posting any of its video, which is kind of
surprising since I always thought we were doing a CNN a favor by
constantly touting their network. Apparently I was wrong.
NOTE: You can still see the entire video on Huff Post.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2006/11/08/censored-by-cnn-bill-mah_n_33701.html
CNN has also now edited the official transcript of Larry King Live, so
that no one will ever know what really happened. Here is CNN's transcript:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0611/08/lkl.01.html
MAHER: A lot of the chiefs of staff, the people who really run the
underpinnings of the Republican Party are gay. I don't want to mention
names, but I will on Friday night.
KING: You will Friday night?
MAHER: Well, there's a couple of big people who I think everyone in
Washington knows who run the Republican...
KING: You will name them?
MAHER: Well, I wouldn't be the first. I'd get sued if I was the first. (A
PORTION OF THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN REMOVED)
KING: Great way to close out this segment. It's poignant.
CNN didn't just edit out the naming of Mehlman as gay, they even edited
out Larry's question, and Maher's answer, about why gay people sometimes
work against their own people. Now why is that question being censored by
CNN?
I plan to cut the video back to ten seconds, the crucial part where Bill
Maher outs Mehlman, then put it back up (I also still have the 3 meg file,
1 minute 20 seconds long - as do lots of other people, including the Huff
Post). I have a law degree from Georgetown and I know intellectual
property law as it concerns journalism. You can post an 8 to 10 second
video clip as fair use for news purposes, and that is what I plan to do.
And if CNN and Google try to close down my YouTube account for using an
8-10 second snippet for news purposes, they're going to have serious
problems.
Here is the cease and desist I just got from YouTube:
[Go here to see that:]
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6550/107/1600/cnnyoutube.jpg
One thing for sure, humanity's interest in other people's sex lives is not subject to depletion and seems to grow exponentially with the population! I'm a Cornucopian on thia t issue!
A. Amusement
B. Boredom
C. Masochism
D. All of the above
Now, I don't mind the occasional tangent, but, in my experience, discussions on religion tend to blow-up and go nowhere.
So, my two cents, I'd like to keep the relgious discussion to a minimum.
I do get tired of people trying to prove/disprove the existence of the flying spaghetti monster, though.
Best,
gr1nn3r