Sunday Open Thread
Posted by Prof. Goose on March 12, 2006 - 9:29pm
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
If you need something to get you started in the OT, Michael Klare writes:
It's official: the era of resource wars is upon us. In a major London address, British Defense Secretary John Reid warned that global climate change and dwindling natural resources are combining to increase the likelihood of violent conflict over land, water and energy. Climate change, he indicated, "will make scarce resources, clean water, viable agricultural land even scarcer" -- and this will "make the emergence of violent conflict more rather than less likely."Also, anyone else see Oil Crash?
Matson fuel charge to rise by 3.5%
Also has some interesting info on shipping costs, including a graph of shipping fuel prices.
"One reason why Hawaii will be lousy place to ride out peak oil:..."
How does one ride it out? Wait for new oil to form? :)
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48897
It's kind of ironic that Peak Oilers call for government to mandate higher prices, while these people want government to force them to be lower. Everyone wants to have their hands on the wheel, I guess. Apparently having prices set by supply and demand is the one solution that is unacceptable to everyone.I guess they haven't reached the point where cost trumps convenience yet.
It's incorrect, not surprisingly. It's not the higher cost of transportation the gas price is supposed to address. The cap allows extra for transportation and taxes. Hawaii feels it's being gouged because they're a small market where there's no competition. The gas cap ties their prices to the larger markets in NY and LA, that's all. And ut only affects the wholesale cost; the retailers can set any price they want.
Also, Gov. Lingle can suspend the law if she decides it's doing more harm than good.
http://www.energybulletin.net/docs/EnergyTrendsAndTheirImplicationsForUSArmyInstallations.pdf
I work for a major defense contractor, with both Army and Air Force contracts, and knew the writing was on the wall for me when this was posted. Of course, to listen to the management and, sadly enough, most of the people I work with, "the future's so bright, we have to wear shades"...
However, existing programs are just now starting to be "restructured" (can you say cut?) and a certain amount of uneasiness is becoming evident. This causes me to feel both anger and sadness-- I have been followng Peak Oil for maybe 18 months or so, and only because I like to pay attention to what's going on in the world. Why aren't more of the bright, well-educated people I work with ready for this? Then I look at the most oblivious ones, and it seems like they're the nicest ones I know-- young engineers just starting families and previously savvy "old-timers" looking forward to a guaranteed retirement involving spoiling their grandkids. However monstrous the organization is, the military-industrial complex employs a lot of bright, kind and good-hearted people that are going to suffer along with the rest of us.
But if true - and it sure looks legit - I cannot understand why it's not on the front page of every paper and the subject of the most heated discussion. Instead, we hear nothing in the MSM. It seems like we must be living in some sort of Alice in Wonderland time period.
But whether the mainstream in the military really act on it is something else. Despite that global warming report, we aren't doing much about it.
No direct quarrterly numbers to meet will do that for ya.
And a broad mandate of 'protection' lets 'em.
They are worried about the reacation of other huamn beings to the changes that are a-comming.
Note that it is not the generals who screwed up the Vietnam war, it was their civilian superiors. President Eisenhower was smart enough not to touch Vietnam with a ten-foot pole (and seriously pissed off the French by not coming to their rescue at Dien Bien Phu in 1954), but "smart Harvard lawyer" JFK and his McNamara/bean-counter Sec. of Defense and the Dean Rusk brain trust of lawyers got us into what was a disaster and quagmire ten times worse than Iraq.
Before invading Iraq, the highest-ranking Army guy
says, "Hey it is going to take 400,000 American troops to do the job," and so the politocoes force him out because that is not the Gospel accoding to the straight-shooting;-) Cheney and Co., guys who truly are ignorant of military history. I cannot figure out Rumsfeld, who actually served in the military, how he can have said and done the stupid things he has. It is a big puzzle to me. And how could he not have had the honor to resign after the revalations of mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners? This is a BNG, Big National Disgrace. Also, why did not Bush have the guts to fire Rummy? Misplaced loyalty? The conventional wisdom is that Bush is dumber than spit and merely a puppet dancing on strings pulled by the Big Money Boys, but I do not think this is the whole story, and I think it will probably take historians fifty or a hundred years to figure out an accurate account of what is actually happening now.
Some days, I'd love to resign and spend more time with my family. Can't afford it.
Bush is not stupid, but IMO he is willingly being handled by some really sharp, calculating characters that are in every way a lot smarter and better informed than him. It saddens me, but a lot of people I know, members of my family, see nothing wrong with what the US has done at Gitmo or Abu Ghuraib. I think their sense of immunity is sort-sighted.
Kennedy's knifefighter instincts were perfectly suitable to running a PT boat, and he no doubt would have made a wonderfull privateer captain, but if you want to fight a land war in Asia you have to understand farmers.
1. Do not become involved in a land war on the Asian land mass.
2. Do not become involved in a land war on the Asian land mass.
3. Do not become involved in a land war on the Asian land mass.
IMO JFK was an ignorant and arrogant a-hole who tried (egged on by little brother Bobby) to kill Castro at least six times, enthusistically did the dumbest things imaginable, damn near got us into World War III through really stupid mistakes, bungled the Bay of Pigs Invasion bigtime, was the only U.S. president ever to use full-time the services of a high-class pimp, and was so addicted to drugs that he had a hard time reading his speeches.
His image and the whole Camelot thing was a total fantasy created by spin doctors and fawning journalists. IMO he bears most of the problem for us getting inot the Vietnam fiasco.
God rot his soul in hell.
And by the time we got out, we could brush our teeth, swim, read , and feel good about being able to do at least something.
My father, who saw heavy action in both big wars, told me the first thing to do in a real fight was to shoot all the peacetime parade ground tyrants because they were the ones that would get you dead. Too bad that hasn't been done in DC.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/energyresources/files/Westervelt_EnergyTrends__TN.pdf
bruce from chicago
Recylcling In the First World is a CRIME - a syndicate of unnecessary and parasitic middlemen. The Third World recycles correctly - on the spot, w/o the Red Tape of a Central Pod somewhere...
Penn and Teller point out the Fraud of First World Recycling Charades. They get it wrong too when they say recyling doesn't Pay or Work.
In the First World it acts as welfare for and subsidizes GreenFreaks- a bad approach of a Large Centralized Organ. The Third World Get's Mother's Prize - Profoundly Local Recycling efforts On The Spot. No Energy Using Middle Parasites need apply thank you.
Good luck folks. You be needing it. Shortly, I'm sure.
Once again, I confidently predict, with no fear whatsoever of successful contratidiction the future of oil prices: They will fluctuate.
You are correct(as always)in your prediction that prices will fluctuate - but then the real question becomes, how much will they fluctuate?
A big turning point will come when expectations of price level changes go from being adaptive to "rational."
Another Huge Unpredictable Factor (HUF) is the collective behavior of rumor. Rumor rules the day-to-day fluctuations to a large extent, and I am 100% certain that some of these rumors are planted with the intent of manipulating the market for profit.
For example, did you hear? Terrorists just blew down the Statue of Liberty . . . . Well of course that is bullshit, but a clever person or group using the Internet (which is 90% to 98% BS, it seems to me) can spread a rumor like this, complete with fake photos, fake press releases to bounce prices a couple of bucks in a matter of minutes. Will the SEC or anybody ever catch them? Not likely--could be in Russia, anywhere.
I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.
POE
"Women sense my power, but . . ."
I guess winter's not over yet...
Industrial users may be cut off. Many have already cut back due to high prices. (Among them, building materials manufacturers and fertilizer makers.)
And here's the graph. Yowsah.
I just spoke to my Mum and Dad who live on the south west coast of Scotland. They had 8inches of snow last night and were expecting more snow tonight.
My mum said that almost the whole country had snow, but the west coast had more than the east.
Luckily they use heating oil instead of gas, and I've been telling them to keep the tank topped up in case of big price fluctuations.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/03/060308212104.htm
Perpetuum mobile? Or maybe cheap fusion?
"When you go to the store and buy three cans of tuna fish, buy a fourth and put it under the bed," Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said. "When you go to the store to buy some milk, pick up a box of powdered milk, put it under the bed. When you do that for a period of four to six months, you are going to have a couple of weeks of food. And that's what we're talking about."
Also it is cheaper to buy buckets of peanut butter by the dozen.
Just be sure to date everything, use First In, First Out inventory control and only buy stuff you will eat anyway.
Query: Is it moral to shoot your neighbor when she wants to share your stockpiled food after TSHTF? This was a big topic back in the good old "Build your own fallout shelter" Cold War days.
My answer: Choose your neighbors with care. Don't get yourself into "not enough space in the lifeboat" situations.
And if you have a third-class ticket on the Titanic, good luck.
We got a nice little booklet (for free!) from UKGov last year telling us all to stock approx 21 days worth of food just in case... (Just in case of what?). Most people threw it in the bin I suppose. Anyway thats 21 x4 (+21 x 1 retriever). So... last September, mad-daddy the PO nut tried to some way stock up and be, (like the boy scout he was)prepared.
It is an interesting excercise in its own right.
First off: Assume that by day 14 you will be rationing your own supplies in the family (by day 18, your are eyeing the golden retriever...). Lets just assume 4 x 21 x1 can of tuna. 84 X $1.50 in your money. This is your basic protein. 84 X $ 0.50 Baked Beans. There is yer'Carbs
(actually i am slightly more adventurous and we have a reasonable gamut of canned goods, this is for brevity).
Then there is a few extras like rice, pasta - any dry goods that store well. Chocolate, Whiskey (mad - dads morale is important). etc.
So Storage can be an issue. Esp. in the UK for most people.
Then secondly, how to cook? Our stove is electric. If the lights go out then we dont eat hot food. So, An extra bottle of Propane and a 2-ring portable gas cooker ( tag: about $ 100.00 in the UK). Then there is lighting: Candles, Hurricane lamps, torches etc.
Our heating is gas, but the water pump is electric. So do we get a propane heater or just run on the spot for 3 weeks? - Lets assume it happens in a cold snap. Thats about another $100.00
We did not even consider bottled water at this stage.
Enough: you get the picture. I reckoned that to be truly prepped a UK family would, on average earnings need to spend an extra months food bill or more on all of the above. Many would spend all year tripping up over this stuff.
We got the basics sorted out (but we did not start from zero 'cos in rural scotland, you tend to squirrel stuff away) . The logistics for most people would be pretty hard financially and logistically.
Not easy, and worth a whole thread in itself.
They are recommending that you choose foods that do not need to be heated, in case the power grid goes down.
Link
On the basis that 7 days probably is not an emergency, by 10 days the problem gets worse, and panic buying clears most of the shelves in supermarke