Peak Oil & Climate Change (merged)

[JPL]

Silly man as I have already pointed out if we all become vegetarian (as I am - grin) and stop driving we will be perfectly OK.

Great! You should do that. So should everyone else.

That leaves more for me.

I don't drive out much because we produce most of our food right here on the smallholding & I work from home anyhow. Domestic energy is also covered because we heat & cook from wood which is locally cut & we also have our own coppice willow coming on apace.

The small amount of electricity we use is kind-of covered because as you probably know, France is 85% uranium-power. I don't approve of this too much but I'm willing to accept this while Europe does the (painful but necessary) transition to renewables.

That's it, really (shrug). There is no 'more' for the future & you might be better off thinking about 'less'.

Certainly if you are trying to lecture other people, you might want to start thinking about what can be done to help society as a whole, both individual & group action, rather than thinking just about yourself.

JP

[Jack]

Certainly if you are trying to lecture other people, you might want to start thinking about what can be done to help society as a whole, both individual & group action, rather than thinking just about yourself.

JP

JP....please understand that I am not trying to lecture others. I do not seek to change them, nor to help them. I have no children; hence, I have no great emotional connection to the future.

To what end should I seek to help society?

[Hagakure_Leofman]

Good thread Jack.

I agree with you. Extending this, the global warming political scene is one that also relies on ignorance and false promises which are useful social tools. Most of the touted technical solutions are pipe dreams. There is a grandiosity to climax change that plays right into our cultural arrogance and sense of superiority.

Peak oil theorist are realists in a way that politicians never are. Most of the material that deals with peak oil simultaneously outlines depletion, then deflates current technological solutions. There are no promises to be made for a better future in peak oil, as there is in global warming. Only uncertainty and massive change.

A politician can win votes by addressing global warming in rhetoric. The same politician would lose votes in addressing peak oil. The numbers are also too close for comfort in peak oil. The now verses, 2020, 2030, 2050.

It's an interesting sociology topic. Bravo.

[GASMON]

Re: Why global warming trumps peak oil.

The wording above is wrong, it should read

Re: Why global warming covers up peak oil.

Thats what it is folks, a worldwide COVER UP.

Now firstly, global warming & climate change IS an event, it is happening. Can't argue that. But the worlds climate has changed many times over the (millions of) years. Cant do the planet much good, the amount of crap & CO2 we pump out, but are we responsible for GW / CC ?? I beleive we are, BUT ONLY partly so.

Now the "powers that be" know full well about peak oil. Truth is there getting scared shitless. They don't / can't do anything. Its politics. So they jump onto the global warming / climate change bandwagon, ramp up fuel prices, ramp up taxes, make US feel responsible & to blame, make US pay for it.

Many other complex interlinked factors also, population rise, manufacturing shift (to east), resource location / depletion etc.

Last week I bought a 25KG sack of Thai jasmine rice - £32 (was £18 few weeks ago)
Today I bought a DVD recorder. £35 (was £60 few weeks ago)

The stuff we can do without is getting cheaper. The stuff we can't do without (food & fuel) is going through the roof.

Crazy world.

Gasmon

[Ludi]

Thing is, it doesn't really matter if peak oil and global warming are "real" - we as a society probably aren't going to do anything significant about either. We've known about global warming for at least 50 years, and haven't done a damn thing about it.

*shrug*



50 years ago!

[JPL]

Certainly if you are trying to lecture other people, you might want to start thinking about what can be done to help society as a whole, both individual & group action, rather than thinking just about yourself.

JP

JP....please understand that I am not trying to lecture others. I do not seek to change them, nor to help them. I have no children; hence, I have no great emotional connection to the future.

To what end should I seek to help society?

In a simple sense, because you make it harder for people like myself. Don't get me wrong, I have the same awareness of the future as you do, I think our views are similar.

Let me tell you a story. I have three children. A couple of years ago the youngest started behaving strangely. I don't have a great deal of time for modern medicine - so it took my wife & I a while to plough through stuff. Anyhow, it's turning out that two of the kids, and myself as well, have a neurochemical disorder - a form of Autism called Asperger's syndrome.

Apparently we 'sufferers' have no emotional contact with the world apart from that which we manufacture within our own heads.

I think for me, this does explain a lot, possibly why I have always gone through life on a slightly corkscrew slant & now live a slightly bohemian life with my beloved family in a very quiet place & I prefer to meet new trees than I do new people.

One of the by-products of the syndrome - which has finally explained endless trips, over the years, to the doctor which produced nothing - is the fact that I am allergic to repetitive noises, high-pitched noises & patterns of lights, such as produced by telephones, groups of people, television sets etc (they cause, painful, mind-numbing migranes). In simple terms, I am allergic to cities, cars, large groups of people, and in many ways, modern, technological society itself.

So that is me. But I have digressed. I think what I'm trying to say is, when you are outside of the world, looking in, I really hate to see other people throwing away that which was taken away from me at birth & have never experienced although I can make up for it, if I have to, with clever words.

JP

[emailking]

If scientist cannot predict the weather 5 days from now, they sure as hell cannot predict the weather 5 years or 50 years from now.

Predicting daily weather and predicting climate trends are two completely different matters and are in no way comparable. The former is completely dependent on initial conditions down the position of a given electron. The latter is not.

Predicting climate 50 years from now will get better and better as we learn more about how it works and get more computational abilities. Predicting daily weather hits a barrier after about a week.

[Jack]

I think what I'm trying to say is, when you are outside of the world, looking in, I really hate to see other people throwing away that which was taken away from me at birth & have never experienced although I can make up for it, if I have to, with clever words.

Once upon a time...long ago, but not far away...a wise man told me: "Never fight a trend."

The markets are, to a great extent, a reflection of life. I cannot change the direction of the markets; neither can you. Neither can anyone, long term. If I fight a trend, the market will win, and I will lose. If I accept the trend and act accordingly, I may profit.

In this matter, I believe you are fighting the trend. You cannot win. If I joined you, we could not win. Now if the whole world united, perhaps the trend could be changed - but the chances of that are negligible. You know this at least as well as I.

Sorry, but I'm not going to bloody myself fighting the trend. We've chosen a path of countless tears, and we will not be denied.

[JPL]

In this matter, I believe you are fighting the trend. You cannot win. If I joined you, we could not win. Now if the whole world united, perhaps the trend could be changed - but the chances of that are negligible. You know this at least as well as I.

Never, in my entire time here, have I said a fight was winable. (Probably be pulled up on that one but that's my fault for posting too much crap - grin).

But then I'm not a fighter (except when pushed - grin).

As I've pointed out occasionally before, this forum is not actually about Peak Oil - it is a peg on which people put their hats until they feel safe enough to talk about the real issue - which comes out after a while in most posters.

On this one I'm willing to talk & give what input I can (it isn't much, but one does, you know). In this respect there is no fight. How can there be? One day ends, another one dawns. This is the way things work. You can rage against the darkness, or celebrate the coming of the next daylight, as you wish. These are just human responses (shrug).

I never said the next age of human history was going to be better, it's going to be one without technology, that's all. It's going to happen regardless so we might as well face it with as positive a slant as we can muster.

JP

[AlexdeLarge]

An interesting article concerning John Coleman's (Founder of the Weather Channel) Comments Before the San Diego Chamber of Commerce. Coleman talks about the direct connection between Global Warming and four dollar a gallon gas.


Here is the link:
http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscor ... 42304.html

"Hello Al Gore; Hello UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Your science is flawed; your hypothesis is wrong; your data is manipulated. And, may I add, your scare tactics are deplorable. The Earth does not have a fever. Carbon dioxide does not cause significant global warming."

I think you will find it an interesting read. Coleman is one of many respected scientists who challenge the "politically correct" global warming proponents. I think he makes an intriguing argument and one that must be considered before spending trillions of tax dollars on programs that may have no or limited impact. This very true when the money is needed to go into alternative energy research, more drilling for new oil fields and fighting hunger in the third world.

[Sys1]

This guy is dumb. Crazy.

Even if global warming and pollution are in the hoax domain(which is certainly not the case: acidification of oceans, ice/permafrost melting with runaway CH4 release, mass extinction of fishs/trees/animals/bees/anything but humans),
we would have a problem:

He pretends oil is expensive because of environmentalists threatening usage of fossil fuels. That's SOOOOOOO wrong. We have never used so much fossil fuels even if we know about global warming and their very finite quantity. Oil is going up because demand is surging while supply stands still and will soon collapse (I bet 2011-2012).
His proposition simply consists in drilling everywhere to save civilization. That's absolutely ridiculous. He's in full denial.

[elear2787]

This guy is dumb. Crazy.

Even if global warming and pollution are in the hoax domain(which is certainly not the case: acidification of oceans, ice/permafrost melting with runaway CH4 release, mass extinction of fishs/trees/animals/bees/anything but humans),
we would have a problem:

He pretends oil is expensive because of environmentalists threatening usage of fossil fuels. That's SOOOOOOO wrong. We have never used so much fossil fuels even if we know about global warming and their very finite quantity. Oil is going up because demand is surging while supply stands still and will soon collapse (I bet 2011-2012).
His proposition simply consists in drilling everywhere to save civilization. That's absolutely ridiculous. He's in full denial.

Stop being abusive to people who are smarter than you and go take an economics course would ya?

The principle is simple... expectations for the future effect current behavior. If big oil thinks that treaties are going to limit fossil fuel consumption in the future it would be a breech of their fiduciary responsibility to continue investing company money into those areas. Less investment means less supply which means higher demand... not to mention the direct influence of speculation!! This is scientific well founded rules of economics. No economist will challenge the basic premise that future expectation effect not only present and future prices but also basic supply and demand fundamentals in industries. It change the risk factors associated with the industry and the investments it increases the necessary yeilds to warrent such risk and investment ... ect ect ect.

As for global warming IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH POLLUTION!!!!
OMFG stop linking other emissions with CO2 they are not the same issue OMG the ignorance and the strawmen you people through is bewildering... global warming people through so many strawmen up I need to go get some allergy meds.

This is not the first climatologist who will tell you that man made global warming is between unlikely and impossible. Historic ice cores show natural levels of CO2 well above present ranges as well as vast historic temperature fluctuations. We are warming presently MOSTLY or entirely ... depending who you ask because we are coming out of the "little ice age" in the 70s scientists thought we might go into an ice age!!! IT was called global cooling and there are still articles you can find about it if you look!!! Its cyclical. Yes carbon is a greenhouse gas but its effects are logarithmic not exponential and thus the amount of carbon we would have to emit to effect global temperatures to real significant degree is bewildering given the fact that global carbon cycles naturally and increased carbon yields increased plant growth which sequesters CO2 naturally!!! Trying to warm the earth with CO2 is a massive up hill battle!! I promise you!

I have professors at my university with PHDs in climatology and physical geography who will tell you that there is very slim chance that ANY OF TODAYS WARMING TREND IS MAN MADE!!! they will tell you yes the earth is warming but it was scheduled to do so and the impact of humans is really negligible in all likelihood.. there is no solid evidence to the contrary it is all circumstantial or theoretical nothing solid! Not mention more than one climatologist that I have heard speak to the matter agree with this person. Including one of the most respected weather person in my region... who happens to be a climatologist..

So sys1... as much as I hate it... you have no logical or scientific leg to stand on. Would I like to curb human impacts on the environment? YES!! But you need to do it with sound science not propaganda and political pressure. Global warming is bad science! I would like to see us cut all emissions to lessen our impact on the environment but killing society or damaging our economy on bad science is not the way to go! There are much bigger fish to fry! Besides if we are about to run out of fossil fuels anyway as you claim then who cares about global warming?!? How much more damage can we do? Is there anything we can fix at this point? seems like a waste from your position of the world is ending... IDK just something to think about.

[essex]

Thanks elear2787
Great post - the climate clowns are in retreat.

[AlexdeLarge]

The problem we face is "Political Correctness". The global warming fanatics are stifling the debate. It has almost become a religion where you have the true believers on one side and the heretics on the other side .....and the heretics must be burned at the stake! The science must rule.......and the science is being buried by the clerics who control the environmental movement.

We must not let government grow larger and take more tax dollars from the citizens on the basis of an unproven theory. Let the scientists collect their data over time and submit it for peer review. If the data is faulty or does not support the hypothesis then it must be rejected.

Bottom line is...... think for yourself and don't let "Political Correctness" make you drink the Koolaid!

[essex]

Several months ago I was involved in a lengthy court case in the Environment Court here in New Zealand concerning an appeal by an overseas company to add additional turbines to their wind farm I am not against wind farms per se but this proposal is literally right over a large number of homes and lifestyle properties. Previously Environment Commissioners had rejected the companies bid - they have approval for 75 as it is. The group to which I belong , opposing this , really raised the bar from a legal, scientific and moral point of view regarding future wind farm proposals. The company employed the services of the country's top lawyers to attack us in court and we were called one by one to the stand EXCEPT for me. My evidence related to the argument raised by the company that " global warming " was a good enough reason to approve the additional turbines. I had researched this for two years and the evidence against catastrophic warming or indeed any warming of significance is overwhelming.
My evidence stood unchallenged in the Court and this is very signicant.
I am proud of what I did to expose the pc b/s that is fed to the sheeple.
Will we win ? Should know in a few weeks.

[Sys1]

elear2787 : You say : "We don't need to care about CO2 emissions if we running out of fossil fuel".

Wrong. As we are running out of oil, we'll shift to coal and biomasse (meaning killing forests) to produce energy. Our CO2 emissions will actually increase faster and faster while our oil supply will decrease.
Peak oil won't be green. It will be black. And red.

"killing society or damaging our economy on bad science is not the way to go"
The only problem is that OUR ECONOMY IS DAMAGING OUR ECONOMY since we adopted growth paradigm. At first, growth looks great. Now that manking is becoming a plague, growth is leading to our own destruction.
By the way, I don't care about your PHd's teachers, they are just paid to say what their employer want them to tell. How many so called "experts" and "economists" are telling peak oil is nonsense? I saw them everywhere. TV, radio, newspaper. They are supposed to know, they are the expert. You can't say they are wrong, you are not the expert. Trust them. Until you'll die starving in the dark.

You are in the business as usual area. You should phone mainstream medias, they'll love to insert your post between a SUV and a Walmart adds.
I bet your beloved economy will be history before 2010.

essex : you said "My evidence stood unchallenged in the Court and this is very signicant. "
Very significant of what? I'm sure I can bring "evidences" that lung cancer is not related to smoking, and sure I would be applaud by tabacco companies. Would it means that it is the truth?

Tabacco is good for lungs. Look, I've a friend who is 65 years old and who smokes two packet every day since she was 20. She's not dead. Well, sure, she breathes like Dark Vador, but that's not the point. She's alive.
On the other side, I had a friend who died from cancer at the age of 33 years old (just like Jesus). He never smoked. He should have!

[Serial_Worrier]

elear2787 : You say : "We don't need to care about CO2 emissions if we running out of fossil fuel".

Wrong. As we are running out of oil, we'll shift to coal and biomasse (meaning killing forests) to produce energy. Our CO2 emissions will actually increase faster and faster while our oil supply will decrease.
Peak oil won't be green. It will be black. And red.

"killing society or damaging our economy on bad science is not the way to go"
The only problem is that OUR ECONOMY IS DAMAGING OUR ECONOMY since we adopted growth paradigm. At first, growth looks great. Now that manking is becoming a plague, growth is leading to our own destruction.
By the way, I don't care about your PHd's teachers, they are just paid to say what their employer want them to tell. How many so called "experts" and "economists" are telling peak oil is nonsense? I saw them everywhere. TV, radio, newspaper. They are supposed to know, they are the expert. You can't say they are wrong, you are not the expert. Trust them. Until you'll die starving in the dark.

You are in the business as usual area. You should phone mainstream medias, they'll love to insert your post between a SUV and a Walmart adds.
I bet your beloved economy will be history before 2010.

More crudity and abusiveness. SOP on the interwebs.

[Cashmere]

While the majority of Americans still say they consider climate change a serious issue, a new poll suggests public concern over the issue has ebbed since last year.

Right on cue - when people have to pay 10 bucks a gallon for gasoline and can't afford to heat their homes past about 55F, GW will fall entirely off the radar.

More Important Things to Consider

[dohboi]

What a funny thing you are, cash. Your title contradicts itself. If, as your title implies, the life of an issue is determined by its popularity, then PO is far deader than GW. But if an issue is valid in spite of the obliviousness of the majority of the sheeple, then your whole premise is exploded.

A moment of thought would have made this obvious, but then thought is hard work, and a moment can seem a very long time.

[Cashmere]

Your pet issue is dying dB.

As expected by those of us with vision, nobody will care about the weather when energy and food prices are going through the roof.

It's happening now. And with oil only slightly above 100.

When oil goes to 200, you won't find a headline in a major paper with the words "global warming" in them.

It's as if we're Rome being invaded by the Vandals and members of the church of GW are wondering weather the crop yield will be good next year.

It's a non-issue now, because there are much more immediate and larger fish to fry.