My favorite is when liberals say:

"Americans consume 25 percent of the world's produced oil, but our nation holds less than 3 percent of the world's proven oil reserves"

aka...

"I have less than 3% of Warren Buffets savings.... and I consume 25% of my paycheck"

oh ok is that so?

[Edited on March 17, 2012 at 9:33 AM. Reason : #LOLIBERALS]

3/17/2012 9:32:29 AM

Quote :

"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84zIj_EdQdM&feature=player_embedded ignoring this dude's tears, still a lot to think about"

I wasn't even bothered by the guy choking back some tears.

If those plans he described go into place, it would drastically impact the lives of millions of people and species around the world.

Unless, of course, we're continuing to pretend that global warming isn't a threat; in that case, mine away, baby!

[Edited on March 17, 2012 at 5:08 PM. Reason : /link]

3/17/2012 5:07:55 PM

Nope. Not much of a threat.

3/18/2012 12:44:51 AM

Yes well all know people like you have to believe it's not a threat because, if it were, it'd be one gigantic global market failure.

3/18/2012 11:18:27 AM

Well, if I am right and it is not much of a threat, then the current dis-locative worry and effort put into it is a gigantic global market failure. No one wins here, no matter what happens in the future, global warming will always be a great example of the irrationality of man.

3/18/2012 11:31:50 AM

No, that would be you, Lonesnark.

3/18/2012 11:39:10 AM

what this country needs is a dictator to show us the way to save us from burning fires so we won't kill ourselves.

and when we stop polluting in the USA we can take over china militarily and stop them from polluting too.

secretly openly, all democrats hope with all their hearts that the ocean levels rise quicker so that government can quickly take over to 'save us all'

3/19/2012 12:32:49 PM

Quote :

"all democrats hope with all their hearts that the ocean levels rise quicker so that government can quickly take over to 'save us all'"

I'm not a Democrat, but I feel like I'm the type of person that you're describing... and I don't hope that the ocean levels will rise.

They are already rising; they are displacing thousands, if not millions, of global inhabitants on a yearly basis, already.

How is this even controversial anymore?

The worst case scenarios of five to ten years ago are not even plausible anymore, because we are too far gone and have surpassed even those scenarios.

When the most descriptive term that one could assign toward one's own self-sufficiency is 'too little, too late'...

I feel that it may be time that we rethink our own course of action.

[Edited on March 20, 2012 at 4:48 AM. Reason : ]

3/20/2012 4:46:00 AM

Quote :

"They are already rising; they are displacing thousands, if not millions, of global inhabitants on a yearly basis, already. How is this even controversial anymore?"

lol, probably because they are NOT rising more than the historical rate, if at all.

I say yay, which isn't shocking anyone in here

Oil the fuel of the 20th century? Sure, but oil (and gasoline) will still be the primary energy source for at least the first half of the 21st century too. So I'm gonna call it the energy of the 21st century as well, unless someone can convince me otherwise.

3/20/2012 1:14:45 PM

Quote :

"lol, probably because they are NOT rising more than the historical rate, if at all."

Well, yeah, they actually are: http://www.skepticalscience.com/sea-level-rise-intermediate.htm

Google is your friend. Go ahead and try to argue this is a "historical rate" but don't expect to be taken seriously after that ", if at all." part.

3/20/2012 1:30:45 PM

Average sea level rise over the last 20,000 years is 6mm/year. The charts displayed in your link show a rise of 3.2mm/year (shown over the 15 years). So I would call that below the historical rate. As to "if at all" I was referring to last few years where it has stalled out.

3/20/2012 4:55:48 PM

man fuck oil. and fuck gas prices. i hope they go to $10 a gallon.




b/c i have a 1/2 electric car

3/20/2012 5:11:50 PM

Quote :

"Average sea level rise over the last 20,000 years is 6mm/year. "

Lol how convenient, you started right at the height of the last ice age. How totally relevant to the current time period. Good to know our sea levels are only rising at half the rate they did when the Bering land bridge was submerging.


[Edited on March 20, 2012 at 6:36 PM. Reason : .]

3/20/2012 6:22:32 PM

3mm per year of sea level rise is nothing to get all worried about. We've got bigger fish to fry.

Quote :

" They are already rising; they are displacing thousands, if not millions, of global inhabitants on a yearly basis, already."

Were thousands, if not millions of people being displaced in the '60's and '70's when the planet was cooling and sea levels were rising 1.6mm annually? Or is that extra 1.4mm per year making that much difference?

Quit with thr fearmongering.

[Edited on March 20, 2012 at 8:02 PM. Reason : 1]

3/20/2012 7:57:22 PM

The amount of carbon that the tar sands are expected to release is frightening.

3/21/2012 12:45:50 AM

Quote :

" Were thousands, if not millions of people being displaced in the '60's and '70's when the planet was cooling and sea levels were rising 1.6mm annually? Or is that extra 1.4mm per year making that much difference?"

Are you seriously asking if "the rate of change nearly doubling in the past 40 years" is "a difference" ?

Quote :

"Quit with thr fearmongering."

Honestly sea level changes are the least of my worries, I'm more concerned about what shifting weather and ocean current patterns mean for food production. Still, the long term trend isn't promising.





If our coastal cities ever submerge, we'll probably already be in a state of starvation and savagery.



[Edited on March 21, 2012 at 9:58 AM. Reason : .]

3/21/2012 9:58:22 AM

^in your opinion or based on hypothesis made by others you googled, what year should we expect manhattan to be buried under the ocean?

just planning my next few years buddy. thanks for the help

3/21/2012 10:00:40 AM

I just said I don't think it's a serious issue, at least in our lifetimes. Exactly when depends on whether or not the rate of change continues to accelerate or not.

Curiously, however, there are strong indications that the world and all the people on it will continue to exist after our lifetimes. I doubt Manhattan would be the first to be threatened though. There would also be a long period of occasional-flooding that'd render places virtually uninhabitable, long before total submergence. I'd say that, by the time New Orleans is submerged, we'll already be completely fucked by the other effects.




[Edited on March 21, 2012 at 11:05 AM. Reason : .]

3/21/2012 11:00:00 AM

yeah, because global warming is the only thing that could possibly submerge new orleans.

3/21/2012 1:40:18 PM

Like I said, it'd probably suffer a long period of increasingly-frequent flooding and extreme weather events long before the permanent submerging. Should have specified permanent.

But it would be pretty funny if Global Warming did submerge New Orleans, and deniers would say, "Ah comon, when has New Orleans NOT been subject to submerging?"


[Edited on March 21, 2012 at 1:54 PM. Reason : .]

3/21/2012 1:52:41 PM

its 79 and sunny today here in southern maine so y'all can fuck right off with this junk about stopping global warming

3/21/2012 2:00:24 PM

and fuck the russians for being able to grow food!

3/21/2012 2:31:44 PM

An amendment by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) to keep the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline American-made and its oil for American markets was defeated 34-64, on strong Republican opposition.

http://thinkprogress.org/green/2012/03/08/441052/republicans-kill-wyden-amendment-to-keep-keystone-xl-us-friendly/


For those unfamiliar with the Wyden amendment, from http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/07/us-usa-politics-transportation-proposal-idUSTRE82622Y20120307:

Quote :

"A Democratic U.S. senator offered a proposal to ban exports of oil from the Keystone XL crude pipeline from Canada and require American iron and steel be used to build it, part of an effort to derail a Republican plan that would fast-track the project."

AMERICAN OIL FROM AMERICA FOR AMERICA WOOOOO

[Edited on March 21, 2012 at 2:35 PM. Reason : .]

3/21/2012 2:34:55 PM

canada is basically americas backyard

3/21/2012 2:36:57 PM

^^ A stupid amendment, I'm glad it was defeated. Resources must flow to their highest valued uses. Having regulators running around making sure the oil goes to politically approved uses would be a whole bunch of stupid.

3/21/2012 3:54:05 PM

europe had major cold this winter

usa had a mild winter

this is a 'la nina' year.


therefore it was the damn KEYSTONE OIL PIPELINE WHI' PEOPLE BUILDEN ALL DEM MACHINES AND DRILLIN THAT CAUSED DE GLOBAL WARMIN

3/21/2012 8:29:39 PM

Yay

3/21/2012 10:24:14 PM

Quote :

"^^ A stupid amendment, I'm glad it was defeated. Resources must flow to their highest valued uses. Having regulators running around making sure the oil goes to politically approved uses would be a whole bunch of stupid."

Oh, hey Lonesnark, tell us again how 500k barrels a day is going to affect global prices on oil.

[Edited on March 22, 2012 at 9:10 AM. Reason : .]

3/22/2012 9:09:19 AM

Quote :

"^^ A stupid amendment, I'm glad it was defeated. Resources must flow to their highest valued uses. Having regulators running around making sure the oil goes to politically approved uses would be a whole bunch of stupid."

Haha people like you won't stop at advocating the wholesale environmental destruction of the third world. You want to see the US become a set of wastelands and gated communities. Amazing.

3/22/2012 9:11:34 AM

^^ It was your position that millions would die without that extra oil, not mine. It was my position that Americans would be better off producing more oil than not, either through lower gasoline prices, a stronger dollar, or higher wages.

^ And people like you won't stop advocating the wholesale environmental destruction of the entire planet through war and societal collapse. Policies as bad as the ones you advocate would have dire consequences for political stability.

3/22/2012 10:32:36 AM

Quote :

"It was your position that millions would die without that extra oil, not mine."

You're confusing me with someone else.

Quote :

"It was my position that Americans would be better off producing more oil than not, either through lower gasoline prices, a stronger dollar, or higher wages. "

Producing 500k more barrels per day would accomplish none of those things, all it would accomplish is depleting the reserves we'll need very, very badly a few decades down the line just to add an additional .01mm lining the pockets of a few international oil execs.


[Edited on March 22, 2012 at 10:46 AM. Reason : .]

3/22/2012 10:45:33 AM

It must have been some other Str8Foolish which said "50 years from now that imperative could be millions of human lives."

As it takes decades to fully develop an oil field, banning the development today means it is unavailable decades from now when you proclaim we will need it "very, very badly." If the system has collapsed then there will be no one here to spend a decade developing test wells and the infrastructure needed to safely develop the oil field without wrecking the coastline.

Quote :

"Producing 500k more barrels per day would accomplish none of those things"

It must accomplish one of them, as the equations tend to balance. The workers must be diverted from other work, which means paying wages sufficiently higher than that other marginal employer to induce the transition. Even at the higher wages, the new work is still far more profitable than the other marginal work, which means the shift in economic activity has boosted America's return on capital. Meanwhile, the lower imports or higher exports of oil must be balanced on international currency exchanges, which means a stronger dollar and cheaper imports for all American consumers.

Americans put in the same land, labor, and capital and got more stuff out, which means Americans are better off.

You can argue that you don't care about Americans' economic well being on this issue given the environment risks, but you cannot argue that banning profitable activities does not damage economic well being. Try considering the banning of a different activity, such as automobile manufacture or the harvesting of lumber.

3/22/2012 11:14:43 AM

Quote :

"It must have been some other Str8Foolish which said "50 years from now that imperative could be millions of human lives."

Oh, yeah, 50 years down the line it definitely will matter to many, many lives. We'll have long passed peak oil and we'll need it badly for plastics, medical devices, fertilizers, and transportation. Developing oil fields now for the benefit of private multinational corporations wont help them at all, and will just deprive the next generation.

Maybe if we had higher fuel standards I'd be more up for doing so now, but our standards are still a joke by international comparisons. You're against those anyway. Your position boils down to "Let's get more oil so we can burn more oil and thus somehow money for everyone!" You have no conception whatsoever of broader implications and consequences over the long-term, much like the oil industry as a whole.

Quote :

"As it takes decades to fully develop an oil field, banning the development today means it is unavailable decades from now when you proclaim we will need it "very, very badly." If the system has collapsed then there will be no one here to spend a decade developing test wells and the infrastructure needed to safely develop the oil field without wrecking the coastline. "

Lol. Developing those fields today just means the oil will be squandered in inefficient cars in China and India. Letting private multinational corporations develop them just saps natural resources out of the country to sell on the world market, at no benefit to the citizens standing on the soil above the reserves.

Quote :

"It must accomplish one of them, as the equations tend to balance. The workers must be diverted from other work, which means paying wages sufficiently higher than that other marginal employer to induce the transition. Even at the higher wages, the new work is still far more profitable than the other marginal work, which means the shift in economic activity has boosted America's return on capital."

No, it doesn't, unless we have full employment, which we don't and wont have for awhile.

Quote :

"Meanwhile, the lower imports or higher exports of oil must be balanced on international currency exchanges, which means a stronger dollar and cheaper imports for all American consumers. "

500k is insignificant both to our own consumption (2.5% and shrinking) and to the global market (0.6%). You'd be lucky to see the price move by more than a few pennies even if you opened up every square inch imaginable both in US territory and off-shore.

Quote :

"Americans put in the same land, labor, and capital and got more stuff out, which means Americans are better off."

Americans have their natural resources sapped out for short-term profits and suffer long-term consequences. Multinational corporations and their executives, on the other hand, will rack up short-term profits and long-term savings.

Quote :

"You can argue that you don't care about Americans' economic well being on this issue given the environment risks, but you cannot argue that banning profitable activities does not damage economic well being."

Yes I can, the existence of profit for international actors does not guarantee the well-being of the citizenry from which the resources are being depleted. That's a whole level of retardation above Trickle Down.

Quote :

"Try considering the banning of a different activity, such as automobile manufacture or the harvesting of lumber."

There's no banning being discussed except by some strawman in your head. All that's being discussed is managing resources with broad and long term concerns in mind, not the inherently narrow and short-term concerns that the oil industry has demonstrated to be its forte for the past century.

[Edited on March 22, 2012 at 12:10 PM. Reason : .]

3/22/2012 12:06:08 PM

Ok, so you have changed your position. It is no longer that the effects are insignificant compared to the environmental damage, it is that peak oil in true and drilling it now will make peak oil worse on us in the future when we will drill it anyway, environment be damned, presumably in a hurried and messy fashion, to slow the collapse of technological civilization.

So go buy land/drilling rights and sit on it. Maybe you'll make a killing. I realize federal lands are a problem because politicians can never bring themselves to actually sell anything, but you can go buy private drilling rights today, all it takes is cash. I believe there are investment funds that will let you do this right now with whatever amount of money you choose to invest. Just saying.

Anyway, peak oil...where to begin...peak oil is not a disagreement over numbers or how systems operate, it is a belief that technological civilization and its various systems which have been working remarkably well for generations will one day cease to function at all. I cannot disprove such a belief, as it is not and cannot be based upon anything measurable today. I can point out how the system as it operates today is full of checks and balances to prevent such a failure, how there is plenty of slack should even severe shocks occur, or all the historical examples of the system adjusting successfully to what people at the time thought were unrecoverable shocks. But I'm sure you've heard this all before.

I believe Jared Diamond was wrong to suggest civilization can be done in by outside factors, such as environmental causes or resource depletion. I firmly believe the only way for human civilization to fail is if humans themselves collectively decided that it should.

3/22/2012 3:51:23 PM

Quote :

"Ok, so you have changed your position. It is no longer that the effects are insignificant compared to the environmental damage, it is that peak oil in true and drilling it now will make peak oil worse on us in the future when we will drill it anyway, environment be damned, presumably in a hurried and messy fashion, to slow the collapse of technological civilization."

Environmental damage would be largely limited to ecosystem disruption and ocean-related shit, and I'm the first to admit those are short-to-mid-term issues. Yes, I am more concerned about maintaining our reserves until oil is more scarce and our use of it is less haphazard (AKA, combustion for transportation).

Quote :

"So go buy land/drilling rights and sit on it. Maybe you'll make a killing. I realize federal lands are a problem because politicians can never bring themselves to actually sell anything, but you can go buy private drilling rights today, all it takes is cash. I believe there are investment funds that will let you do this right now with whatever amount of money you choose to invest. Just saying."

I'd sooner advocate for nationalization of our national oil reserves. I'm not interested so much in personally profiting from future turmoil.

Quote :

"Anyway, peak oil...where to begin...peak oil is not a disagreement over numbers or how systems operate, it is a belief that technological civilization and its various systems which have been working remarkably well for generations will one day cease to function at all. I cannot disprove such a belief, as it is not and cannot be based upon anything measurable today. I can point out how the system as it operates today is full of checks and balances to prevent such a failure, how there is plenty of slack should even severe shocks occur, or all the historical examples of the system adjusting successfully to what people at the time thought were unrecoverable shocks. But I'm sure you've heard this all before."

No, it's none of this horse shit. Peak oil is the factual matter that oil is not unlimited, and that every well and region of wells follows roughly the same pattern of production in spite of increasingly sophisticated extraction technology.

Quote :

"or all the historical examples of the system adjusting successfully to what people at the time thought were unrecoverable shocks."

Actually, history is littered with societies that consigned themselves to complete annihilation because they initiated shocks that they were were impossible to adapt to once they were in action.

Quote :

"I believe Jared Diamond was wrong to suggest civilization can be done in by outside factors, such as environmental causes or resource depletion."

Okay, you believe wrong then. But congrats on believing something? You literally believe that outside factors cannot do in a society, which is absurd on the surface unless you assume there's something magical about homo sapiens that make them immune to the laws of nature.

Quote :

" I firmly believe the only way for human civilization to fail is if humans themselves collectively decided that it should."

Yes, you firmly believe in a magical, just world where everything works out somehow no matter what. This is convenient since it absolves you of all considerations of long-term impacts of your actions and the actions oft he market. If you actually acknowledged that history is a litany of civilizations that failed due to short-term motives yielding long-term consequences, your whole "philosophy" would collapse in on itself.

[Edited on March 22, 2012 at 5:29 PM. Reason : .]

3/22/2012 5:26:59 PM

Quote :

"I'd sooner advocate for nationalization of our national oil reserves."

And then what? Halt production? Boost production? Why should George Bush have the only say over such an important resource and how it is used?

Quote :

"Peak oil is the factual matter that oil is not unlimited"

Nothing on this planet is unlimited. Which is why the system has mechanisms built into it to allocate resources to their highest valued uses. I suspect we will always have more oil than we know what to do with (like right now), but if we don't then so be it, the system will reorganize to maximize well being with whatever the oil sector manages to produce. We may be absolutely poorer, but the equations will re-balance and the system will continue operating.

Unless, of course, people like you use this as an excuse to break the system, such as through nationalization and shock central planning. The only thing humans will never successfully defend themselves from is other humans, especially other humans proclaiming an emergency gives them the right to make adjustments they should not be making.

Quote :

"Actually, history is littered with societies that consigned themselves to complete annihilation because they initiated shocks that they were were impossible to adapt to once they were in action."

If by "shock" you mean breakdown of social order, then yes. But I clearly pointed out I meant external shocks, such as environmental or resource shocks. Some of the examples Diamond gave were screwed up not because environmental calamity did not occur, he just never bothered checking the dates. Civilization collapsed due to internal conflict (such as civil war) before the environmental calamity occurred. There is no doubt the downfall of human civilization always takes a major toll on the natural environment, which is what Diamond was measuring. He just screwed up cause and effect.

Quote :

"You literally believe that outside factors cannot do in a society, which is absurd on the surface unless you assume there's something magical about homo sapiens that make them immune to the laws of nature."

I said outside factors most likely have not in recorded history, not that they never could. Something that killed all the humans would do fine, such as a meteor, plague, or volcanic eruption. But the examples Diamond cites in his book have alternative explanations which better fit the evidence. As long as humans desire civilization to continue, we will bury the dead and reconstitute our domination over nature.

3/22/2012 11:25:24 PM

I think you two, ^ & ^^, are disagreeing on the scale of impact.

^Seems to be more on a total, long term human specie, global society scale. ^^ Is more focused on smaller, differentiated societies/classes, and the near future (1-3generations.)

Given enough time, we all die. Even the planet. It up to the individual to decide what is most important to them... Their short term, temporary well being. Or on the other side of the spectrum, the long term survival of the species and planet.

The longer the term, the less is known about: affecting variables, impending crisis, advancement in technology.

I recommend reading The Black Swan by Nassim Talib (sp?). It discusses the theory that it is almost pointless to create strict long term plans, as black swan events are what shape society and practically everything else.


[Edited on March 23, 2012 at 8:57 AM. Reason : ;]

3/23/2012 8:56:07 AM

Quote :

"Which is why the system has mechanisms built into it to allocate resources to their highest valued uses. I suspect we will always have more oil than we know what to do with (like right now), "

You're utterly insane. Why do you think prices climb higher and higher as our consumption grows and global oil production levels off, like it has the past 15 years? You have a severely warped and childishly optimistic set of assumptions that don't seem to be based in reality. As we saw in other threads, you simply believe "We cannot know 100% how limited reserves are, so I just assume there will always be more."

Quote :

"but if we don't then so be it, the system will reorganize to maximize well being with whatever the oil sector manages to produce."

The system does not maximize well-being at all now, in the present, why expect it to later after a shock?

Quote :

"But I clearly pointed out I meant external shocks, such as environmental or resource shocks. Some of the examples Diamond gave were screwed up not because environmental calamity did not occur, he just never bothered checking the dates. Civilization collapsed due to internal conflict (such as civil war) before the environmental calamity occurred. There is no doubt the downfall of human civilization always takes a major toll on the natural environment, which is what Diamond was measuring. He just screwed up cause and effect. "

A resource shock can be initiated by the society, as in the case of deforestation in Haiti or (long ago) Easter Island, or in the case he cites of water mismanagement. They're all cases of a lack of large scale, long-term planning. If you have beef with this, I'm gonna need you to actually show something more specific than "He said sometimes stuff happens, but he's wrong."

Quote :

"I said outside factors most likely have not in recorded history, not that they never could. Something that killed all the humans would do fine, such as a meteor, plague, or volcanic eruption. But the examples Diamond cites in his book have alternative explanations which better fit the evidence. "

Like what? Let's hear em.

Quote :

"As long as humans desire civilization to continue, we will bury the dead and reconstitute our domination over nature."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubris


[Edited on March 23, 2012 at 1:03 PM. Reason : .]

3/23/2012 1:00:15 PM

drilling for oil is useless.
all fossil fuels should be banned

if you can't afford an electric car and solar panels on your house.. then fuck you.

fucking 99%ers using fucking gas and oil every day. and then complaining how gas is 'oh its horrible for us all'

piece of shit hypocrites. go outside, get a job, get inspired, make money and get renewables and don't be the CAUSE OF THE PROBLEM. you fucking dumbasses.

[Edited on March 23, 2012 at 3:05 PM. Reason : OH NO BUT THE FUCKING GOVT IS SUPPOSED TO TAKE CARE OF IT NOT ME!?!?!!]

3/23/2012 2:53:31 PM

Quote :

"The system does not maximize well-being at all now, in the present, why expect it to later after a shock?"

Facts not in evidence. The people of the United States are living lives of remarkable plenty given historical standards. Especially given all the top level attempts to screw it up by people like you (locked up resources, subsidies, taxes, onerous regulation, etc). Our friggin' homeless are carrying around technology unheard of just a decade ago.

Quote :

"A resource shock can be initiated by the society, as in the case of deforestation in Haiti or (long ago) Easter Island, or in the case he cites of water mismanagement. They're all cases of a lack of large scale, long-term planning."

Quite right, and like I said such outcomes are still possible today, such as when "people like you use this as an excuse to break the system, such as through nationalization and shock central planning." But, the people of the society always have a choice to overthrow the collectivist order and replace it with a system that actually works to tame the natural environment (such as private property, something desperately needed in Haiti). If they fail to do so, however, and the environment around them collapses, it is absurd to say they were done in by their environment when the proximate cause was decades earlier when their political system went haywire.

[Edited on March 24, 2012 at 10:32 AM. Reason : .,.]

3/24/2012 10:25:16 AM

The existing pipeline has had 14 leaks since 2010.
21,000 gallons has spilled in North Dakota.
Tar sands are 16x more abrasive than crude oil.

The proposed pipeline will travel over the Ogallala Aquifer.

Quote :

"About 27 percent of the irrigated land in the United States overlies this aquifer system, which yields about 30 percent of the nation's ground water used for irrigation. In addition, the aquifer system provides drinking water to 82 percent of the people who live within the aquifer boundary.[2]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer Ogallala Aquifer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Michigan is still trying to clean up 840,000 gallons that spilled from an existing Canadian pipeline into the Kalamazoo river.



[Edited on March 24, 2012 at 10:55 AM. Reason : ,,,]

3/24/2012 10:54:58 AM

^

Quote :

"Present-day recharge of the aquifer with fresh water occurs at an exceedingly slow rate suggesting that much of the water in its pore spaces is paleowater, dating back to the last ice age and probably earlier. Withdrawals from the Ogallala are in essence mining ancient water."

quoted from your own wikipedia link. to spell it out for you, the Ogallala is in no danger of being contaminated.

3/24/2012 7:11:10 PM

^^pryderi. tell us how much gasoline you consume during a given month. also tell us about the products you consume that require oil or gasoline for transportation or production



thanks pryderi

[Edited on March 24, 2012 at 9:22 PM. Reason : ,]

3/24/2012 9:21:55 PM

Smooth.

Always.

3/26/2012 12:46:35 AM

Quote :

"Facts not in evidence. The people of the United States are living lives of remarkable plenty given historical standards. Especially given all the top level attempts to screw it up by people like you (locked up resources, subsidies, taxes, onerous regulation, etc). Our friggin' homeless are carrying around technology unheard of just a decade ago. "

Diverting 25% of the planet's oil output to the luxuries of 4.5% of the the population is not a maximizing of well-being unless you literally believe the rest of the planet is non-human.

Quote :

"Quite right, and like I said such outcomes are still possible today, such as when "people like you use this as an excuse to break the system, such as through nationalization and shock central planning." But, the people of the society always have a choice to overthrow the collectivist order and replace it with a system that actually works to tame the natural environment (such as private property, something desperately needed in Haiti). If they fail to do so, however, and the environment around them collapses, it is absurd to say they were done in by their environment when the proximate cause was decades earlier when their political system went haywire. "

Seriously, you're saying a LACK of "taming the natural environment" was the cause of deforestation in Haiti? And why are you talking about Haiti in the present tense? The deforestation occurred over 50 years ago, so you need to talk about Haiti THEN, not now.

For the second time, you're going to have to specifically address some of the examples Diamond gives and your alternate explanations for them. Oh wait, you wont, because in this like all threads you simply rely on being as vague as possible so your actual ignorance is always on the cusp of visibility. You're going to show that all of them are convincingly the result of "collectivist order".

[Edited on March 26, 2012 at 8:59 AM. Reason : .]

3/26/2012 8:55:15 AM

Quote :

"Diverting 25% of the planet's oil output to the luxuries of 4.5% of the the population is not a maximizing of well-being unless you literally believe the rest of the planet is non-human."

But we are not doing that. We don't have an embargo forcing all that oil to north america. It is for sale, if the rest of the world wanted more oil they would just buy it. It is not our fault that people like you have more say in the rest of the world than America, with the resultant inequality of outcomes bad government policy produces.

Quote :

"For the second time, you're going to have to specifically address some of the examples Diamond gives and your alternate explanations for them."

I read the book and the relevant academics too long ago for me to recall necessary details with the necessary accuracy. So other than my conclusion on the whole issue which I've already given, I would rather not go into too much detail about a subject I cannot be sure of my accuracy.

Quote :

"Seriously, you're saying a LACK of "taming the natural environment" was the cause of deforestation in Haiti? And why are you talking about Haiti in the present tense? The deforestation occurred over 50 years ago, so you need to talk about Haiti THEN, not now."

We humans have constructed various systems to engender cooperation among ourselves to accomplish various tasks. The most important of which when it comes to "taming the natural environment" is a system of private property. This system has not functioned in Haiti, with predictable results: a wrecked environment.

3/26/2012 10:25:31 AM

Quote :

"But we are not doing that. We don't have an embargo forcing all that oil to north america. It is for sale, if the rest of the world wanted more oil they would just buy it. "

That has nothing to do with "maximizing well-being."

What if there was one person with enough money to buy ALL oil, being able to outprice anybody else, and use it to power his gigantic floating one-person pleasure palace? By your metrics, this would be the ideal use since the person who pays the most money is getting pleasure.

Quote :

"It is not our fault that people like you have more say in the rest of the world than America, with the resultant inequality of outcomes bad government policy produces."

Hey more vague ass proclamations with no actual substance.

Quote :

"I read the book and the relevant academics too long ago for me to recall necessary details with the necessary accuracy. So other than my conclusion on the whole issue which I've already given, I would rather not go into too much detail about a subject I cannot be sure of my accuracy."

Absolute horse shit with a bad cover. At this point I'm doubting you've even read the wikipedia page on "the book." That is, whichever of his books you're referring to, he's covered many of these crises in at least two of his books.

Quote :

"We humans have constructed various systems to engender cooperation among ourselves to accomplish various tasks. The most important of which when it comes to "taming the natural environment" is a system of private property. This system has not functioned in Haiti, with predictable results: a wrecked environment."

Total horseshit. It was an utter lack of environmental controls in Haiti that led to deforestation. Everybody chopped down trees to produce charcoal, either for themselves are as part of a private business's activity, with no regard for the whole. It was a lack of collectivist thinking and environmental regulation that led to this very, very textbook example of a tragedy of the commons. All over the world the same occurs: It's not government tearing down rainforests, it's logging companies being paid by commercial farmers to expand cultivatable land, often transnational ones taking advantage of private property systems so anti-collectivist that even long-term national security is secondary to short term profit.


[Edited on March 26, 2012 at 10:58 AM. Reason : .]

3/26/2012 10:45:56 AM

I feel like you'd be happier than a pig in shit living in 1980s Soviet Russia...

3/26/2012 9:29:24 PM

TransCanada submits new Keystone XL pipeline plan

Quote :

"For the first time since President Obama issued a controversial order halting its progress, the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline is once again on track for bureaucratic review after TransCanada submitted a new route through Nebraska designed to avoid environmentally sensitive areas, Fox News has learned. The new plan, which TransCanada submitted to the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality on Wednesday, takes the Keystone project out of its deep freeze that began in January when Obama agreed with the recommendation of the State Department to reject the initial pipeline application. This new development allows Nebraska officials to review the impact of the pipeline's adjusted route. It also opens the door for the pipeline's builder, TransCanada, to submit a new complete proposal covering the entire length of the pipeline to the State Department for its review. That federal approval is necessary because the pipeline, which will originate in Alberta, Canada, must cross the border for oil to reach gulf coast refineries. Environmentalists, already disposed to fight oil production, focused on concerns that the pipeline would harm Nebraska's sensitive Sand Hills region. The formal effort by TransCanada and Nebraska officials to find a new route officially stopped with the president's January announcement. This past week, state lawmakers in Nebraska approved legislation allowing for the review process to resume. "Nebraska will move forward on the review process of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline and any future pipelines that will create jobs and reduce U.S. dependence on Middle Eastern oil," Republican Gov. Dave Heineman said in a statement Tuesday after signing the bill. "The review process is a top priority for Nebraska." That review will be conducted by the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality and is expected to take several months. Heineman has told reporters in recent weeks that he fully expects to get an approved proposal before the Obama administration before November's election. A draft report will be open to public review before a final environmental impact assessment is determined. The political fight over the pipeline's construction has been a major issue in Washington and on the campaign trail. Republicans have blasted away at the president for what they see is intransigence over keeping the pipeline bottled up. The most recent effort by GOP lawmakers to force the president's hand by attaching a Keystone provision to a pending transportation bill was met by a veto threat from Obama. Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has said he'll pass an executive order on "day one" to allow construction. Pipeline supporters point to Keystone’s expected economic benefits, including thousands of construction jobs as sufficient reason to approve the project and feel further study is unwarranted. "They've had three years of an environmental assessment that they've looked at this full route,” American Petroleum Institute’s Cindy Schild said in an interview. “So they should have a pretty good handle on the environmental impacts.” TransCanada officials are optimistic that the pipeline will be green-lighted and project a construction start date for early next year with oil flowing in 2015, but the resistance in Washington has caused political leaders in Canada to reassess their position in the global energy market. During a recent visit to China, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told businessmen, "we want to sell our energy to people who want to buy our energy. It's that simple." Huge containment vats at TransCanada's terminal in Hardisty, Alberta, are already under construction. They're supposed to be used for the Keystone pipeline, but plans also could shift to skip the U.S. altogether. In an interview with Fox News in January, TransCanada CEO Russ Girling noted that demand for Canadian oil will all but guarantee that the pipeline is built -- if not south into the United States, then likely west towards the Pacific Ocean with access to Asia. "We're going to need a lot of facilities to move that crude oil to whatever market is going to exist," Girling said. "So I'm pretty confident that under any scenario we'll be using these (Keystone XL) facilities." What’s not immediately clear with Wednesday’s submission is when TransCanada will send the State Department its new permit application. Since most of the route hasn’t changed, the pipeline’s proponents hope the federal review will be swift, or at the very least not take the three years that preceded the January rejection. Assistant Secretary Kerri-Ann Jones told reporters several months ago that officials will make use of all available information but, “if TransCanada comes in with a new application, it will trigger a new review process, a completely new review process.” There is already in place a memorandum of understanding between federal and state officials to work cooperatively and eliminate redundancies. In a letter obtained by Fox News, State Department officials told members of Congress that a 2013 approval decision is still feasible, noting that the reason for the original denial was “not based on the merits of the project.” A senior Republican staffer on Capitol Hill tells Fox News that declaration means that if Nebraska signs off on the pipeline, then there is no legitimate reason for the Obama administration to reject the project."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/04/18/exclusive-transcanada-submits-new-keystone-xl-pipeline-plan/

The president would be obtuse to reject it at this point. If for no other reason than to say "See, we can avoid environmentally sensitive areas and bring oil to the US" while at the same time giving the finger to Republicans who will otherwise bludgeon him to death with this issue despite prices having already peaked.

4/18/2012 9:43:47 PM

The same people who want the keystone pipeline also don't "believe" in global warming.

4/18/2012 11:24:06 PM