However- if we DON'T do anything, the cost of NOT doing anything at all becomes even MORE prohibitive?

Also- here is another twist- should industries devestated by GW be able to sue industries that created GW? For instance- the fishing industry is being pummelled by GW, shouldn't it be reasonable for the fishing industry to be "made whole" by the oil and gas industries?

When some person's industry has a negative effect on my industry through thier negligence and discharge, isn't it justice to demand to be made whole?

Shouldn't it be reasonable indeed. That's an angle on the issue I hadn't considered. The legal angle. Now it's on my radar. Thanks.

It's also interesting to speculate how insurance is going to be effected. I suspect fire and flood insurance may rise exponentially.
------------------------------------------
Just for fun leder let's take a quote from an article of yours and give it a different spin.



Rough population.
1950 - 2.5 billion

2006 - 6.5 billion

The new improved Dingo spin.
Despite the fact of enormous advances in agriculture, distribution, storage, hygiene and medical care the absolute number of people in poverty has marginally increased in total numbers over 56 years. There are also estimates that by 2050 half the present species will be extinct. These are warning signs of system failure and doom unless we take drastic measures to turn things around.

As to your trying to rationalize your economic best choices as being consistent with choices made by alcoholics and drug addicts I think we both know that's a loser. Give it up.

And on a GW warming thread your continual refusal to address the ecological wall your warming produces long term economic improvements for the poor must confront is a flat cop out once again.

Global warming is no longer a question of belief or opinion, it is a fact. The evidence of global warming, and it links to human activity, has been established by research and experimentation results collected by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) based on over seven million observations of temperature, salinity and other variables in the world’s oceans; and that has definitively ruled out natural climate variations due solar activity, volcanic eruptions, photosynthesis, etc. as the cause of measurable increase in ocean temperature, which has risen 0.9F in just the past 40 years. (The same findings were made in a long-range study in Britain.) Even the Pentagon acknowledges the fact of global warming and the threat of climate change on national security interests. See Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall, "An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security" (October 2003). In face of the scientific evidence, which has been independently verified, to say that there is any doubt about it is no longer tenable.

Well this displays a fundamental disagreement on our parts. You see "doing nothing" as "nothing happening." If your only understanding of human action is based on what the government mandates and directs then it will be difficult to find common ground. I do not see letting the market processes work as doing nothing in the sense that you do.




If a company can prove legal wrongdoing in a court of law, then they should be afforded that right like everyone else. But as is the case in a court of law, you have to prove cause/effect. You can correlate CO2 emissions to rising temperature just fine. But you can't prove without a shadow of a doubt that all of these things led to the demise of the fishing industries with no other factors considered.




Dingo, your analysis is laughable. Especially as you cling to this absolute poverty number you hold dear despite the fact that millions of people have been pulled out of poverty. You want to know why more people are alive? Is it because people are somehow more promiscuous in the 20th century than in any preceding century? No. Its because the fertility rates in developing countries are rising exponentially. And why is this happening? Because the world is an easier place to live in! Greater access to healthcare and basic human services allows more people to live and live longer.

And you want to know the solution to the rising fertility rate in developing countries? You are probably going to laugh at this answer but it is more economic growth. World Population Growth



As access to care increases through economic growth and women are able to attain education, the fertility rate will drop since infant mortality will go down and women will have more control over their reproductive rights.



The concept that people who drink alcohol like to drink alcohol and that they value that drink more than the $5 or so they paid for it may be too much for you to accept.




You keep saying this Dingo but choose not to offer a shred of evidence to support it. Am I supposed to take your word for it and be done with it? How about you do some actual research and present something worth discussing?

Well, I would monkey with the words a bit but generally I agree with your assessment. Human activities are, based on the evidence, the main reason for temperature rise over the last century or so. Unfortunately the argument against that view is moving into the faith zone, sort of like the argument between evolutionists and Biblical creationists. The denialist ideology seems to require many of them, since their counter evidence is so enemic, to veer in the direction of grand global conspiracies to destroy free markets and impose a socialist hegemony along with enriching sleazy global scientists who are peddling lies to line their pockets with government grants. Look at the detractors and you will find most of them are conspiracy theorists whose idea of a great scientific resource is the CATO Institute.



In one sense I'm inclined to agree with you. We don't pay even close to the real cost of oil at the pump. Figure in the environmental and medical and security costs and we should probably be paying $10 more at least per gallon instead of subsidizing it with our taxes or out of our medical costs or through environmental degradation. Why don't you free marketers ever challenge that massive oil subsidy?


The record shows over 56 years poverty, your principal indicator of success or failure, has marginally increased while the environment has vastly degraded. Nothing you have said changes that fact or points to any general hope as to the direction we are going. I know all about wealth results in fewer children. But the number of poor are marginally increasing while our earth isn't, so even by your calculus the problem of the poor overpopulating is not being solved though more and better contraception is available. Also it ignores the increased resource expenditure per capita. You ignore the absolute to tout the relative. It's the absolute that will kill us.


I understand why you took the alcoholic and his self-destructive actions out of your response. That obvious point kills yours.


No matter what the evidence AGW denialists like yourself just repeat the mantra that there is no proof for human caused global warming and dismiss all negative future scenarios(Speaking of future scenarios did you look at any of the YouTube videos from Nat. Geographic that I posted?). In your case you make warming a long term good for the poor. That goes against the solid scientific points with measurements and graphic displays brought up in this thread along with many other threads on AD. Do you know, for instance, anything about the contribution of GW to the problems in Sudan?

You choose to deny AGW and its negative consequences, that's your problem.

PS. By your leave I restored the bold and italic words in my post, that you had removed, for clarity.

Leder- in civil cases, it is preponderance of evidence. I think it will be quite easy to get a jury decision over preponderance of evidence.

Go for it CR. And while you're at it, sue NASA for all the CO2 emitted during a shuttle launch. Sue the Defense Dept for all of those emissions by jet fighters, bombers and tanks. Sue the transportation companies that expel all that evil CO2 to bring you fresh strawberries. Sue your neighbor who drives that SUV. Hell, sue Al Gore for all those private jets he uses to fly to speech engagements. Don't be looking for a scapegoat.




Well Dingo, if you looked beyond your preconceived biases, you would know that I have challenged the oil subsidies and all corporate subsidies for that matter.




Look, i am not going to debate global poverty any more. Your blind to everything except your narrow view - actual numbers that contradict your worldview are ignored. But to your point on ecology - you can't look at resource expenditure per capita in a bubble. New technologies are being implemented every day and many technologies that are cleaner and safer (like nuclear) are being hamstrung by politics. The absolute will not kill us and you have offered no proof whatsoever to support your claims.



Self-destructive actions are only self-destructive based on your value judgments. But we digress...




You are all over the place Dingo. I have not denied the existence of GW. I have been critical of your policy based on that belief. Belief in GW does not mean that you also believe that we should destroy our economic policies and that your way is the only way to solve the problem. I offer an alternative approach to the problem. One you equate with denial of GW in the first place.

FWIW- I agree with much of what you are saying- but I am also trying to go at this as a common sense dollars and cents angle- I think the cost of NOT doing anything will far outwiegh the costs mentioned so far.

Living in crisis mode is far less fiscally responsible than dealing with a problem before it gets too bad, and reducing CO2 emmisions to what was it? 1980s levels or something? should not be as expensive as NOT doing anything at all, even in the near term.

Similar to cancer- the surgery is bad, but not doing anything is worse.

Really the oil subsidies I mentioned? Where?



You got nailed on your own petard so you want out. I understand. So you don't think that increasing population, increasing poverty and increasing degradation of the environment, including global warming, not to mention increasing proliferation of WMDs are absolutes that are taking us in a negative direction. You want me to prove they are. First prove 2+2=4.

And no I don't think the mantra of new technologies is going to pull it out for us. Nuclear for instance has many problems of its own. A radically different kind of planning is going to be needed and concepts like local based regional self sufficiency are going to replace world free market blah blah. Technologies appropriate to environmentally sound regional planning are going to be the technologies that will play a part in saving us. 'Growth is good' economics will probably be replaced by steady state sustainability with stable smaller populations. Your grand world wide free market nonsense will be out the door. It was always a fraud and to the extent it was practiced it got us energy dependent and polluted and destroyed indigenous cultures.


Remember best economic choice? That was a value judgment. You were wrong unless you subscribe to some solipsistic view that there are no normative values but then why use the word best. I don't know why you keep digging yourself deeper.



I'd say you're more all over the place. I have been quite consistent in addressing your avoidance of a serious problem. All I got from you is the way to solve the poverty problem was let things warm up and let freedom ring. I tell you about an ecological wall, particularly global warming and you say prove it. I address it and then you say no I'm not denying it. And then you say addressing global warming is destroying the economy. It's enough to make a person dizzy. I'll tell you what. We'll reduce it to a simple question.

What's your solution to poverty? In solving that include the problem of human caused global warming and its effects. Try not simply being reactive to me. Let's see your solution.

I'd like to interject on the discussion on poverty. Much of the premise of global warming is to restrain rampant industrial and consumptive patterns which rely on finite commodities. While the increase of CO2 and other pollutants may not be advantageous in the long run we must remember the purpose of industrializing in the first place is to expand the middleclass and add wealth which can then be taxed. This may sound odd but smokestacks are the best indicator of egalitarian activity because more people than ever before are employing 19th and 20th century technology. Humanity is closer now than at any other time throughout history of applying relatively modern technology broadly around the globe.

The flip side is species extinction which is the price of technology. We're going to have to come to grips with that.

Dingo if you break the debt cycle richer nations instantly become hypocrites because we are denying the development time or opportunity for growth which was given to us in the past two centuries. Jumping to more sophisticated systems of energy use may not be possible when money and credit contract. Depending how drastically we reduce our consumption patterns on an individual level, global warming quickly morphs into Operation Don't. How much are we not going to do?

You can see how wildly things can go out of control if societies which have moved away from mass transit and are built entirely around the car just stop cold turkey? This is a reorganization on a level much greater than that of New Orleans and well...look how well that went. If we had the foresight and kept on the path Jimmy Carter started us on we probably would have had a bit of wiggle room. Unfortunately we don't and must spend more emphasis on crisis management and the politcal upheaval than actually developing cleaner technology. As a peak oil doomer this is more about damage prevention because we've squandered the development time needed for transition technologies.

For the record I agree with your stated objective of reforming the capitalist cause as it currently stands. This is one of only a few issues which I have moderated my opinion on since I started in this board five years ago.

One problem is there is simply not enough wealth to go around and start massive specialized philanthropic projects and keep one's own economy afloat. A second problem is that in order to make an arguement against breakneck development we are going to have to change the way banking works. The switch to a fixed basket of currencies verses free fall fiat means the debt cycle of western democracies over the past half century is going to have to change. That is a hard sell politically. If this sounds jingoistic, it is not meant to. I am merely attempting to address the that current pattern of business via credit-card politics. The third problem must ask why the breakneck pace was adopted. The rate at which populations are growing necessitates a fast and loose style of investing based on quick action or political unrest will follow. While I agree this is not the most sustainable approach it is better than none in the abscence of a political party working for self determination. This is path China has chosen for better or for worse.

In an energy crisis Dingo it is going to take a mammoth effort on the part of the globe and resist the urge to shift to dirtier sources of energy. I'm sorry to say but the solar panel on every roof advocated by California is going to give way to the coal to liquid cars and eventually CTL powered computers! In fact I can see a smoking laptop that makes grinding noises as being a selling feature. The mercury and carcinogins will only 'add' to the experience. Resisting the shift backwards when the crisis begins will overshadow global warming in the next election cycle.

When the credit bubble pops and thrusts us into a world wide recession some of that economic activity will subside. The issue then becomes how are countries going to remain politically stable in the midst of food shortages? Another problem is that some countries will undoutedly fair better than others and become targets. As a part of an Oil Depletion Protocal, we better have a plan, oh wait that was ww1 when everyone lined up on either the A team or the B team except this time it will be involve atomic weapons.

I just did Dingo, you just brought it up for the first time.



Yes, you are correct. I require you to present actual evidence to support your claims. I have posted numerous links to support my claims and all that you have offerred are wikipedia and some random blog. Many of us here at do not just take other member's word for it - especially when that member is proclaiming the end to humanity.



Right. And the key to saving the world are centrally planned economies that dictate where resources should be allocated. I haven't heard that one before. You can't fight GW by stagnating the world economy.



I stand by my original statement, which was "When faced with superior products at lower prices, the consumer will always choose whats best for their self interest." Are you theorizing the opposite? Why are bix box stores like Wal Mart and Target successful? Because they offer quality products at lower prices than the competition. The whole concept of competition is based on the idea that the company that offers a superior product at a cheaper price will have the market share go there way. There is no use arguing the law of supply and demand.



You have been quite consistent in using smoke and mirrors to avoid any type actual discussion on the evidence. You say there is an ecological wall. I say ok, lets discuss that - provide some evidence to support your claim. But you continue to repeat just "ecological wall." You address it by stating your opinion on the matter. I am asking you to quantify the ecological wall but I have little faith you will actually provide any information other than anecdotal.



The solution to global poverty has been provided ten times over. I'll post these links again - perhaps you will actually get around to reading them?

Rx for Global Poverty



Free trade fights global poverty


Now for the Good News



The solution is to allow developing countries the ability to grow their economies so that the people have greater access to health care and basic human services. If the nations are wealthier, then they will be able to better handle the effects of Global Warming. Nations with complex economies with modern technology will not feel the effects of GW as much as backwards and developing countries that are dependent on agriculture. By enriching developing nations so that they could fight disease and malnutrition, we would be saving a whole lot more lives than would fall under the prospects of Global Warming. But your posts seem to indicate that saving lives is not your agenda. Its the large amount of people that are degrading the planet and we must "plan" for a more "sustainable" future.

Now what is this analysis based on? The big white elephant in the room that nobody has addressed. What are the costs/benefits of planning our energy consumption? If we take an extreme example and cut all CO2 emissions dead - even this action would have no guarantee of turning back the warming trend. If we take a more realistic example, the Kyoto Protocol, adherence to this treaty would only delay the effects of Global Warming a couple of years. We would spend trillions attempting to delay an inevitable scenario. It makes no sense. In a world of limited resources, we have to tackle the issues that we could do the greatest amount of good for the smallest cost. If you are in to saving lives, then fighting disease and malnutrition would save millions at a fraction of the cost that it would take to be forcibly cut down on CO2 consumption.

If the public is left to the whims of the market some of the same destructive trends that took us to this spot will remain in place and fester. It is very hard to be proactive in a reactive environment, especially if several problems merge. Take for example the British government's attempts to work with grocers to overstock their shelves. The government realizes that striking lorry drivers will continue into the foreseeable future. Entire sectors of the transport economy are shutting down in Europe and only now are they beginning to discuss curtailing biofuel use. If isolated pockets of famine take hold, it will be very difficult to implement any emgency measure. Waiting for a market based solution is an invitation for disaster.

Courtesy of the Oil Drum

• Recognise and publish the enormous problems associated with the future decline of fossil fuel production so that the population understands the reasons behind actions being taken (immediate)
• Introduce and enforce lower speed limits, uniform throughout the OECD (immediate)
• Introduce regulations on vehicle engine size and efficiency, uniform throughout the OECD (phased introduction from 2009)
• Ban the inefficient production of liquid fuel from food throughout the temperate latitudes of the OECD (effective 2009)
• Introduce regulations on the efficiency of electrical power generating plant (phased introduction from 2009)
• Abandon plans for carbon capture and storage unless this is in context of miscible gas flooding of old oil fields leading to enhanced oil recovery (EOR)
• Abandon all plans for expansion of fossil fuel based transportation and power generation.

I would go over and above and suggest that diesel fed engines be mandated into private transportation. This was not mentioned because Europe is already there. For North America though we have some catching up to do.

One more trip around the prickly pear, right leder? More avoidance, more misrepresentation, more mindless mantras and an economic solution that can be reduced to growth without any consideration of the downstream consequences - most particular to this thread, human caused global warming and its effects.

As to your continued requirement that the ecological wall, primarily global warming, be proved, that is simply unbelievably disingenuous as this thread and many others have provided an encyclopedia of evidence. It would be of little value to simply highlight these matters again as you would follow your usual pattern and step around them and go back to your free trade mantra religion as your panacea to all problems.

Maybe we just ought to wind it up as I don't see any new ground being opened up between us.

Your theories are all well and good Trouble if we conveniently forget that it was government subsidies that contributed to the increase in biofuel use (source). It was government intervention in the first place that resulted in a misallocation of resources towards biofuels. Now that the biofuel fetish is over, the governments are looking for the next energy fad to subsidize. You argue that free market solutions cannot clean up the mess that the bureaucrats created but instead require more government intervention - where is the logic in that? This is exactly the problem with central planning. In the unhampered market, resources are allocated based on supply and demand. Under an interventionist wing, resources are directed towards desired social ends which never materialize and result in malinvestment. Subsidies, credit expansion resulting in easy money,and hasty regulation all misallocate capital away from the areas of the market that the consumers find satisfactory. Then when the investment is lost, it is blamed on market mechanisms.



Yes lets end this circular debate. Its no use debating with someone who has no ability to disconnect science from policy and who has little understanding of economics. Economics is not a mantra, it is a science of human action that explains how individuals arrive at certain decisions irrespective of what those decisions are. I fully accepted what the consequences orf AGW are and argued that we can mitigate the effects through sound economics. You on the other hand proclaimed that economics can do nothing to stop the ecological onslaught of Mother Nature. There is only one religious zealot in this thread Dingo, and it is you. I am trying to relay a policy that would bring developing nations out of poverty so that they can better take care of their people for when the effects of GW are felt. You are trying to relay a policy that weakens the economies of developed nations and destroys the economies of developing nations based on the irrational belief that AGW will devastate humanity. Overpopulation and consumption of resources are your biggest fears and you are ready to sacrifice the poor on the altar of environmentalism to create a 'sustainable' earth. You reject economic analysis as irrational because you do not understand it. Luckily, not everyone shares your zealotry.

What you are saying to me Trouble is that during a short historical window of time the ship of humanity has barely outrun the fast chasing Malthusian shark but now as we approach an era of economic limits the shark is closing in. I know you are actually not saying that but that's the way I take it. The acceleration of species extinction is a definite warning sign.


A slow down or reversal of the GNP doesn't bother me as much as it does some. It will reduce one form of GNP - the gross national pollution. As far as 3rd world nations being enabled to recapitulate the history of modern states, that's guilt = suicide. They should be helped to be self-sufficient and relieved of their economic colonial status in many cases. They don't have to be turned into gleaming industrial states.


The US publics decision to turn away from Carter's energy self-sufficiency program and choose Reagan and his quasi-free market further foreign oil addiction program is a tragedy that as you suggest we are now reaping. I realize we and the world are a big ship to turn around. First you slow the momentum and then you set a new course. The problem is there isn't even close to a general mentality to acknowledge the problem much less a willingness to change course. Mostly you get pretty much business as usual advice from people like leder with maybe a little trimming around the edges; no real change.


Actually I try to stay away from ideology. In my new world there would probably be more small capitalists and less big corporations. But they would have more regional accountability in the areas of moving toward economic self sufficiency and environmental maintenance.


This sounds kind of patchwork to me. The big decision as far as I'm concerned is to work toward national and regional self-sufficiency in an environmentally sustainable way. As far as money and credit, I tend toward the Bucky Fuller view that it is essentially chicken scratches for recording the movement of resources. In this view money problems are symptomatic not causative. It's about the use and abuse of resource allocation. Past societies did just fine without money.


Frankly I'm not following you here. How putting photovoltaics on people's roof tops in California is a downer escapes me. It seems pretty much positive. Where I have more mixed feelings is the opening of large swaths of public lands to solar energy farms which is now being fought out. Let's exhaust the local home options first.


Let me try and adduce the implications of what your are saying. Yes good comprehensive planning for the future is a necessity. But expect to be red baited to the max for even suggesting the obvious.


Yes, through corporate pressure we chose the very inefficient corn. Some environmentalists I know think hemp, which is a weed that grows on poor soil is a preferable source for biofuel.

Yes the subsidies are a result of intervention. I would argue we are in a hyperbolic phase of keynsian intervention. The ease at which money is spilling over from the public sphere to the private is at epidemic levels. As a result private enterprise caters to government handouts and the first one to get on the list becomes the dominant company in the their respective fields. The very health of private enterprise is in doubt with this much money floating around. This provides plenty of opportunity for the private sector to squander investment.

Speaking of subsidies, where exactly in the seven points I offered did I suggest a start up program singling out a new technologies with more investment dollars?



Replace GNP with species extinction. We have 400 years of society built on the idea of growth because nothing we have done can be sustained by an equal number of young people. Everything is based on employing a larger base of people in the future because the very notion of limits is anathema to western democracies. Malthsuan ideas may not be so out of place when phrased that way?



I am not so optimistic. At best we can hope third worlders become free of first world interest and be left to pursue their own agendas. I still think you are looking in the rear view mirror in this regard. When climate change really hits it will be felt and known only as scarcity.

During times of scarcity the chances of people act in a destructive, unsustainable fashions - as in gimme or I'll burn your house down! I fully expect people to slash and burn what is left. You see cooperative activism, I envision last man standing. Without the luxery of time, desperation will take us in the opposite direction from where we need to go.



Yes and no. Carter's program was the realization that when the shah left town, America would have to assume responsibility to police their own pipelines and make it known to all competitors the gulf was meant for American consumption. Initially Iran was policed by BP. Over time as the UK withdrew to pursue their north sea project washing their hands of the role. The implementation of a successor watchdog of the sea lanes meant that a shah was needed. This had the added benifit of securing the largest natural gas fields outside Russia and Qatar. This is why Iran is such a valueable piece of real estate to the middle east. Pro-western security forces in Iran can drastically reduce sea lane surveilance to the entire region as all the pipelines flow to the eastern side of the Arabian peninsula. A pro western Iran also opens pipeline routes into the southern caucuses and opens up energy confiscation to the west in a significant way. When the shah left power, Carter redefined a more militant stance and centcom was born.

Unfortunately Carter had spent most of his credibility enduring the recessions of the seventies. Reagan on the other hand had just enough charisma to convince the public that going massively in the hole on defense spending was okay. He was the model for our current situation of overhyped threats and strangely enough, a role as global police officer. Coincidence?

Getting back on point, change can happen fairly quickly under the right circumstances. A rising fuel price is exactly how to get everyone's attention regardless of political leaning. Again, this is why I offered to engage on an extensive educational campaigning explaining how we arrived at this point. This purpose is to establish a dialog for those just encountering peak oil for the first time. I feel by educating we can reduce the chances of a violent backlash when things get bad and hopefully offer an opportunity to insert green solutions. Without education, the pressure to start up old school coal plants will dominate the NOW crowd. The NOW crowd only cares about today Dingo. If no planning is undertaken, I fear we will revert to slash and burn policies.




We're in your world now huh?

You might get your wish as trade and global enterprise becomes more expensive. However as I stated in Leder's response, banking must change before we can arrive in your world. My thesis is that hyperinflationary environments result from a gradual corrupting of civil society. The historical record suggests that as society devolves so do the cultural values associated with it. This is why all my arguements are aimed at preventing panic. If we lose control of society in manner similar to Darfur, there will be displacement. Once this happens we can forget about climate change as we will have more immediate concerns. You cannot ask a hungry man to ellicit sympathy for arctic warming when he has no place to sleep and has nothing to bring to his family.



An uneducated public will drift towards the first snake oil salesmen who claims to have a solution. There is no crisis mitigation, people will ignore climate change until it becomes a problem and then gravitate to the easiest solution. Climate change is the result of the result of the easy solution consistently winning the arguement.

Trouble, our differences, such as they are, seem pretty simple. You are focused more on present time crisis management and I on long term sustainable planning. If you are trying to educate me on your side of the fence thank you. I am seeing some of your perspective. However just a thought. Near term problems are the result of good long term planning that was never taken.

Let me suggest a point made by Milton Friedman. In a crisis the ideas most readily available are the ones that are first latched on to. One of my points is that modern industrial states don't work in the long run(AGW is just one example) and in any case their urban marvels are not that critical. They are essentially parasitic. That's not really that exotic an idea. One need only go back to William Jennings Bryan's Cross of Gold speech. Another is that we have too many people, way too many. I'm perfectly happy to have a group of wise men and women come up with a good number to shoot for in the future. I would be surprised if it were more than a half a billion. A third point is economic growth is not an unmitigated good. I think we should imitate nature and incline toward steady state. A healthy body is steady state; it's cancer that operates in terminal growth mode. A forth point is we are evolutionarily a tribal people and therefore small unit self-sufficiency is a goal worth striving for because it is natural and has a high degree of accountability built into it. Associated with this is the notion of Appropriate Technology. Instead of passively adapting our society to our technology we should state our societal purposes and make our technology adapt to those purposes. I'll leave it at that for now. Frankly I think my points are obvious and I am quite unoriginal on all these matters. When the propaganda of the past is no longer sustainable I would like to have ideas like these out there and ready to grab.

One additional thought. Short term strategies built into long term solutions commonly carry more cachet. I can put up with a lot more privation if I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, if not for myself, for future generations. In one sense you can say religion has shown us the way there.

How can you dispute that it will cost trillions? The only thing in dispute is the “models” and the effect of CO2 on climate.

At the G8 we heard more empty words. Just a month ago the PM of India said India will not scuttle economic growth for hundreds of millions to reduce CO2 – same for China. There is no way in hell – even if the rest of the world spends trillions that we are going to reduce CO2.

Best to spend the $$ on alternative energy and drilling.





EVERY year we send 700 billion out of the US for energy. What we need to do is STOP doing that.




On this I agree – the NIMBY effect will stall just about anything if not dealt with. I have read that our current electric distribution network needs a trillion $$ to bring it up to snuff – and far more to take advantage of wind and geothermal power generation – far from where the energy is used. THIS is where we should spend - not on a vain attempt to reduce CO2 – which will be reduced as a by product of doing what we need to do in reducing out dependence on foreign oil.

Because there is a lot more than enough no cost/low cost opportunities available for reducing fossil fuel consumption to more than meet the Kyoto target of reducing emissions by 5% below 1990 releases. I have referenced the work at RMI.org (particularly Winning the Oil End Game). For the potential low cost improvements in electrical energy efficiency you might also want to look The Vermont Study done in 2006 and issued in January, 2007.

I am all for efficiency initiatives but if you are trying to tell me we can lower CO2 without China and India (or even stop the increase) you have to be joking.

And all this is fine until you get to the “carbon Tax” which will be huge and will fall right onto consumers and will kill the economy and take away from efforts to fight real pollution and reduce our dependence on foreign oil.



http://sweetness-light.com/archive/gop-hol...bon-tax-for-now

Long term problems have a devil of a time keeping prioritized. The Saudi Oil company Saudi Aramco knew of their decline data as early as the late 70s. Carter's cabinet was hushed up because so many things at that time depended on not rocking the boat. Political convenience is always more lucrative in the short term Dingo. Looking back a lot of cars were sold and a lot of products were made using the old petrol derivatives.

The reason I still have faith in some form of capitalism is it telling of human pyschology. To move a group in one direction the threat must be overt. Change will only happen if the current stategy becomes cost prohibitative. Call me cynical but proactive thought doesn't describe the human condition. Maybe the parable of Noah and his ark exists because at some level people realize reacting to problem has caused great hardship?



Whether through intensive marketing or accidental exposure, living in large mechanised societies has changed us to the point where we can't go back. We can compare and contrast your viability of the industrial state verses the psychological need of living in one. The benefits of of industrial cities make themselves apparent when compared to the rural peasant life. IE there is a reason why China's millions are fleeing the countryside to go to the cities. What we contemplating is potential reverse of globalisation, something that will empty the cities and reverse a four century trend. While I can't say it won't happen I'm not sure I like those odds.

Freed up time created whole new areas to take advantage of the division of labour (electronics, gadgets), and added comfort to human life. All these perks have a psyscholigical impact that will not be given up easily, which lays the foundation for statements like 'our way of life is non-negotiable.'

The point of this aside is to highlight that resistance which will be encountered when you tell peope they may have to live in a tent and fashion rabbit skin moccasins for oneself. The answer will be, 'yeah right'. Hence we can't go back. Depending on the state of the emergency, denial will take hold and complicate large scale coordination efforts like giving into to striking lorry drivers for subsidies or draining the strategic petroleum reserve for temporary relief. These are the current manifestations of the Jennings speech because what each are after is to enlarge the money supply at the ground level for short term gain. The problem is this money will exhaust the supply at some point either contributing to shortages or leading to further price hikes which creates a problem of circular nature. Either way the Jennings speech represents a reoccuring need for people to wish things into existence in order to 'do something' to confront a problem.

Deconstructed further the Jennings debate becomes philosophical in nature. The proactive approach [climate change] hordes resources to confront the problem in advance, hoping the conclusions were sound, the perceptions accurate, while the inflationary response takes for the moment, involves taking from Peter to benefit Paul and pushes the day of reckoning off to tommorrow. As a result the response to climate change takes on behaviour which is best exemplified through sound money practice because both issues highlight a fundmental shift in the way resources are perceived.




I've heard low 2s for the american way of life, low 3s for a labour intensive latin american way, or 5.5 billion for a 100% vegetarian-vaegan-poofter human populace.

I hate to throw a wrench in this thinking but if this group of wisemen had a guy with a funny mustache and spoke in a german accent would you be as accomodating? How about a little chinese guy with an idea of a great leap forward? Not everyone will agree with you and then perceptions come into the mix. This is how political ideas come about. Come to think of it didn't the Khymer Rouge get rid of their intellectuals, adopt aggrarianism in a big way and still have massive food and social problems? Going back is not an option.

For the record I love notion of eugenics. I can spend hours on the subject but the social implecations of practicing eugenics have always lead to explosive social movements because societies consistently equate limit with repression. I've resigned to the fact people are best left to wander off the cliff by themselves and let nature just take its course through famine and war. Take the survivalist approach, stock up on James Howard Kunstler and show only strategic bouts of compassion when you think it may benefit you down the road. Waay easier sell.



The idea of sustainability went down the water closet the day we developed agriculture. There is no steady state in modern man.. well except in David Suzuki shows. Agriculture allowed the first uneven use of wealth to affect human beings. It also was our answer for a better way when those hunter gatherers who chose not to limit their progeny had to deal with a way to feed more people. Same thing happened when the forests went into decline in europe, we found coal because hungary cold people get tired of tribal life. When we outgrew coal and realized with better sanitation we lived longer we went to whale oil then petroleum. Each time man has answered change by pulling another energy solution out of his hat. The pressure to cope with ever increasing population dictates are insatiable need for greater forms of energy consumption. Dingo, as much as it pains me to say, man has proven himself incapable of voluntarily pulling down his numbers and resistent to less energy-intensive lifestyles. Charlon Heston's grandkids would say "You'll have to pry that ipod from my cold dead hands!"

When you mention steady state I'm reminded of young children who are told to settle down. The aggression is trained out of them. It is inherent to take and to push. Tribalism is the whosale acceptance of reoccuring war and dominance. One cannot engage in passive tribalism and keep modern jurisprudence - at least not easily. You are hoping to create a social white elephant that has never existed. To engage in tribalism risks throwing out the window all the laws encouraging domicile behaviour. IE if we adopt this tribal lifestyle I'm betting you'll have your wife or gf carted off by a viking-like guy one night. He'll plop her over his shoulder and off he goes. Two hundred years of women's rights gone. Poof! A tribal lifestyle says to me that we have foresaken ease of mobility which means enforcing any sort of law is going to be difficult.



I agree but would point out any form of social engineering has had a historical pattern of starting off well and ending badly. What you are essentially talking about is creating a dynasty of reaffirmation with nature which is going to be easier said than done.

The latest from G8. They agree on 50% reduction in CO2 by 2050 – which will never happen since China and India say no-way.

China will not commit to binding greenhouse gas emissions cuts, reports the BBC.

Lu Xuedu, deputy director-general of China's Office of Global Environmental Affairs, told British parliamentarians that China does not presently have the "capability to make those commitments."
http://www.climateark.org/shared/reader/we...e%20development

Bush correctly says there can be no agreement without them.

And of course the wacko environmentalists say it far too little.

TOYAKO, Japan (CNN) -- A call from the world's most powerful nations to establish the goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions worldwide by 2050, was criticized by environmentalists Tuesday.
The agreement by the Group of Eight industrialized economies -- which includes the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Canada and Russia -- was struck during the G-8 summit in northern Japan.
However critics argued that the 50 percent reduction target was insufficient, and have called for ambitious midterm targets for countries to cut emissions by 2020.
"At this rate, by 2050 the world will be cooked and the G-8 leaders will be long forgotten," Antonio Hill, spokesman for Oxfam International, told The Associated Press.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/07/0...ange/index.html

Have events over the last 2 years changed your opinion about global warming?

Not really. For one, we haven't really had many huricanes in the US since Katrina. Based on that, a person would assume things are getting better not worse. There is also other evidence that these types of events were particularly bad in prior decades as well.


What kind of evidence would you require now to accept that weather events are being influenced by Global Warming

Really, if the majority of climatoligists and respectable scientists agree it is man-made and a real phenomena, that's enough for me.

Is the media properly reporting unusual weather events? Did you know that hurricanes Dean and Felix made landfall as category 5 storms in Mexico and Nicaragua respectively? If so, where did you learn it?

No, not Mexico. But the floods in the midwest and fires in the west are getting attention. It's hard to say these are related to global warming as we've seen similar events in the past that mimic these.

Over the period that this topic has been open I have posted a number of links to papers and summaries of papers that demonstrate a link between unusual weather events from around the world and GW. Here are a few of them.

Precipitation Changes



See HERE for a lay version.

US and World 2007



Significant World Wide Anomalies in 2007

NOAA Map

The year was marked by exceptional drought in the U.S. Southeast and the West, which helped fuel another extremely active wildfire season. The year also brought outbreaks of cold air, and killer heat waves and floods. Meanwhile, the global surface temperature for 2007 was the fifth warmest since records began in 1880.



http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~pierce/elnino/wha...oes%20it%20have?

http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~pierce/elnino/history.html

http://iri.columbia.edu/climate/ENSO/curre.../technical.html



"Interannual variations of global surface temperature are strongly affected by the warming influences of El Niño events the cooling influences of La Niña events. The year 2007, with a provisionally assessed temperature of 0.41 °C (above long-term average), was colder than forecast. This was due to a much quicker than expected decline of a moderate El Niño that warms the climate, followed by the development of the strong cooling influence of the current La Niña.


http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/...80104091616.htm

If we are continually warming then shouldn't 2007 have been THE warmest?

If anyone was curious 1934 and 1998 are tied for the warmest year on record. 1934?!? lol wut?

ALSO, Five of the ten warmest years occurred before World War II.

Link to NASA data

I'm quite capable of thinking long term. I'm sure other folks are too. Our Constitution took the long historical view. If it had been a short term rush job like you seem to favor I doubt the results would have been as favorable.

Carter had a serious long term plan to get us energy independent. I still wonder if it would have made a significant difference if he had been reelected.


I agree and don't agree. Some generally encompassing crisis must be there however a relatively small but focused group can determine the direction of a whole ship of state on particular matters. I won't mention a few lobbies that have demonstrated that.


You might want to discuss it with the Mayans. They know all about abandoning urban centers and going back to villages and farms.


Maybe you would like to discuss the matter of perks with the millions of refugees living in temporary hovels. My guess is a stable productive life without all the perks might look awfully good. When global warming goes up say another two degrees centigrade there will be a lot more people informing you I suspect that a terminal addiction to perks is not really their principal problem.'


Whereas I wouldn't preclude such a choice the point is to move toward regional self-sufficiency as the remote centers of power break down. I'm up for whatever that takes.

WJB got it more or less right. The cities need the farms more than the farms need the cities. You start with relevant truths and then make plans for the future that manifest that truth.


Speaking of money in a crisis I suspect nonntrinsic forms