October 30, 2008 at 9:48 am
Markets are not perfect, but they are more efficient than government. The oil business got larger inspite of government. Standard Oil was broken up due to "antitrust" by the government. Regulation, red tape and taxes prevent them from producing more for less. Why do you need to launder money through the government to create the next energy generating technology? Who ever creates this new technology stands to make more money than Bill Gates. A bunch of elected lawyers funneling money to their buddies and pet projects are wasteful and unnecessary.
Once again CO2 is not the problem. You can live happily in a 10% CO2 environment, and you think 0.08% is a problem. It is a natural by product of breathing and a vital nutrient for plants. Concentrations in the past have been a lot higher than currently. It is also a lagging indicator of global warming not a cause of global warming. That big yellow thing in the sky has far larger impact or do you think the Roman warm period and Mideaval warm period were also caused by SUV's?
If China and India are not using the latest and greatest scrubbing technology would you force them to use it? Would you force them to stop burning coal and consign billions to poverty? Would you demand acre after acre of land to grow food for ethanol production that will cause food prices rise and push millions in starvation?
October 30, 2008 at 10:14 am
Government also has the funding to push for something that can be seen as having global importance. I guess that boils down to what you think governemnt is responsible for. Is it just to build roads and tanks? Or is it governments responsibility to help improve the world we live in.
I have not mentioned that I can't live in a world with more CO2 in it. Just not on the current coastline. I have said, that we don't know all the implications that come with a rising CO2 level. And of course that big yellow thing in the sky gives us lots of heat. That is it's job. It does it well. Green house gases just don't let that heat radiate back out of the atmosphere.
Ask the polar bears. Do you think the melting of the glaciers and polar ice caps is insignificant?
No. I won't force them to use scrubbers. I won't force them to stop burning coal. By the way, I think you could probably find a billion living in poverty already in those countries. And crushing air pollution as well. Think about the Beijiing Olympics.
And as far as Ethanol production goes, when did I say that we should do that? I am pretty sure I agreed with you that ethanol is NOT the solution. Read the whole post next time.
October 30, 2008 at 10:17 am
blandry (10/30/2008)
We used to be "Americans" - now we are "Republicans" and "Democrats".
Besides pointing out that you need some in-depth American history lessons (to counter delusions of non-partisan eras of yore), I might suggest an easy solution for this problem. Join the Republican party and stop shilling for communists and their lackeys.
:w00t:
As Americans we seem to have completely lost any common sense thinking
We'll see. If Obama wins, you're right.
Now, we have one candidate chanting the mantra "drill baby drill" when we already know we cannot drill our way out of our current energy mess. His supporters cheer this message! That is astounding to me - and yet indicative of what we have become, and more, how we are sewing the seeds of our own doom.
We could only wish McCain would chant that. The closest we're getting is his running mate doing the chanting, because McCain's a greenie. *sigh*
I'll sign up for alternative fuels when somebody can demonstrate the chemistry or physics that explain an alternative with the same energy density and efficiency as oil. Nobody's found one yet that I can fit in my car.
Keep looking for that alternative, but don't hold a GUN to my head and demand that my tax dollars subsidize every goofy wind project out there.
I'd be happy to fund nuclear plants, but the same people demanding solar and wind are opposing the only proven alternative: nuke it up, baby!
Simply put, we have lost common sense, almost totally. We will leave the coming generations with immense debt, a very dangerous world, and a lifestyle far from that our parents, let alone ourselves, were able to enjoy. Its a pretty sad picture when you consider that we had the potential to do and be so much more - but we chose self-indulgence, and political party over the fact that we all are, first and foremost, fellow countrymen and women.
Agreed. Let's shut down ALL government spending for a couple years, pour the tax money on the debt, Dave Ramsey-style, and start over in 2015 with nothing but constitutionally-authorized spending.
:hehe:
October 30, 2008 at 10:24 am
Steve Hoyer (10/30/2008)
Government also has the funding to push for something that can be seen as having global importance. I guess that boils down to what you think governemnt is responsible for. Is it just to build roads and tanks? Or is it governments responsibility to help improve the world we live in.
The government is not accountable or responsible for anything but the defense of a population: from others and each other. Period. That's the only thing a government can do reasonably well. Governments bungle everything else.
I'll trade you some so-called green energy research for a ban on abortion, though. See, I can compromise!
I have not mentioned that I can't live in a world with more CO2 in it. Just not on the current coastline. I have said, that we don't know all the implications that come with a rising CO2 level. And of course that big yellow thing in the sky gives us lots of heat. That is it's job. It does it well. Green house gases just don't let that heat radiate back out of the atmosphere.
Watch for chillier weather in the next five to ten. The global warming hoax is unraveling. The cycles which everyone has been blaming on human activity are NOT influence by our hubris. As if.
Ask the polar bears. Do you think the melting of the glaciers and polar ice caps is insignificant?
Take a look at the extra 24 feet of snow on arctic glaciers (the few that we actually measure) and tell me another fairy tale about endangered polar bears.
What happened with the prediction that arctic sea ice would vanish this summer? Nobody's pointing out that there's MORE ice in the arctic now than in recent years and winter hasn't even started...
No. I won't force them to use scrubbers. I won't force them to stop burning coal. By the way, I think you could probably find a billion living in poverty already in those countries. And crushing air pollution as well. Think about the Beijiing Olympics.
And as far as Ethanol production goes, when did I say that we should do that? I am pretty sure I agreed with you that ethanol is NOT the solution. Read the whole post next time.
Ethanol has increased the cost of my breakfast by 300% in the past five years and it's really starting to hack me off. Cut it out!! It's bad for my 5.7-liter engine because it burns hotter than straight gasoline, so stop mixing it in there!! I'm planning to keep the 4x4 for another seven to 10 years, and I don't want to have to keep replacing seals and other abnormally worn parts. Grrr.
October 30, 2008 at 10:40 am
Hi Folks, my perspective on this is disinterested as regards the US election (UK citizen, no US vote), but I just wanted to comment on the business focus of the thread as it applies globally: some very interesting articles appeared last week in New Scientist which really tried to steer the debate away from unsustainable economic models of perpetual growth, and get us to consider how we might, as a world population, see the way to 'living within our means' by which they meant both resource use and waste disposal. It seems to me that unless our leaders can see that there is no more future in pursuing year on year economic expansion as we have been doing for the last few decades, we are paddling up a dead-end creek, disposing of the paddle, and finding no more trees out of which to fashion a new one!
October 30, 2008 at 10:46 am
Well, you know what? I'm gonna give up on the global warming thing. You're not going to convince me here. I'll not convince you. I'll agree to disagree.
Government spending, well we'd have to stop a whole lot of things to get back to defense only spending...like no more interstate expressways. I suppose we could just make them all toll roads, but then people will ride the state roads to avoid them and make the states pay for more repairs, but then what are the states constitutionally required to do on roads?
Ethanol. Wow. I'm quite sure I said that ethanol is not a good solution. Third time now.
Keeping your old car - that is one thing that could help the environmental problems - don't need to smelt new steel for a new car every 3 years. I'm right there with you in my 1995 Tracer (35mpg btw).
😀
October 30, 2008 at 11:02 am
I'm a Canadian, so my interest in Steve's electoral decision-making process may seem out of place, but I did read recently that Obama's "first priority" was the implementation of an Apollo-like project to deal with renewable energy. Given his suggestion to "treat the energy situation in this country as a crisis and attack it the way we attacked the space program in the 60s" I would think he need not remain undecided for long.
October 30, 2008 at 11:03 am
Governement has no funding. It takes the money it uses from the people. Who determines what is of global importance? Throughout history many people thought that they were smart enough to know what is globally important: Napolean, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Mussolini, etc... I think Thomas Jefferson defined the responsibilities of government best:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. "
It is not the job of government to improve the world we live in and I would also submit that government incapable of doing so. Individuals improve the world we live in.
Polar bears do not talk; Ice caps and glaciers have been melting and freezing throughout history. The fact is that globe has stopped warming since 1998, and actually it has been cooling since. The cooling of the last two years has reversed the warming of the last hundred years. Based on the sunspot activity Scientists are expecting a cooling trend for the next 30 years.
Greenhouse gases only prevent certain wavelengths of light from escaping into space. Add enough green house gas and none of these wavelengths go out to space. Once that point is reached it does not matter if you add anymore greenhouse gas because there are no more light to trap. This behavoir is not linear but logrythmic and asymptotically approaches a maximum. For CO2 this maximum has been calculated to be about one degree celcius based on energy balances. A temperature increase of one degree would improve man's lot with longer growing seasons. The seas have been rising since the end of the last ice age. Get use to it.
I have been to these countries and I have seen the poverty and I have breathed the foul air. Access to energy is the way out of filth they live in. In China, it is the government that is destroying the environment by building these nasty coal plants in an effort to modernize asap. They do not care that they are killing their own populace. Their first Great Leap foward killed 40 million because Mao though it was important.
You misunderstand my ethanol point. It is a prime example of "good intentions" have disasterous affects. This is when government does something because they think it is of global importance. It is just one example of what government should not do.
In this universe you have to burn something to generate enegry. You cannot avoid it.
October 30, 2008 at 11:38 am
Don't have to burn anything to generate power. Go nuke, I'm with David on that one.
Global warming, we'll never agree, as on a few other issues. Doesn't mean we shouldn't continue to study and debate it. Is it a problem? An issue? I think there is some validity to the science, but I'm not sure they know the whole picture. We don't know enough about the cycles of the Earth. I wouldn't be surprised we have a 2051 year cycle of warming cooling!
As far as government. That's a hard one. I'd prefer more states rights (and funding) rather than federal. I can see how we got here from the start, but I'm not sure our founding fathers were completely correct. They gave us a framework to bend and grow. Standards, resolution of disputes, we have various issues that the government manages. Poorly perhaps, not sure there are better systems.
However, a lot of the breakthroughs, the science, the research. lots of that comes from government funding. They give money to someone to pursue something. Actually they give it to 100 people and one does something marginally good. Inefficient? Hard to say. Would it happy otherwise? Perhaps.
I just don't think that we know or that any of us can for sure be certain what is the best solution. Should everyone build cleaner power plants? Sure, but we have to get there from here and we have to work together. We can't wholesale change on a dime, and I'm not sure I want to. I want the debate, I just don't think that we move forward by calling each other idiots and refusing to believe anything from the other side.
Ethanol is a good example. It's not "no ethanol" or "millions of acres moved", we can find middle ground. High end cars work well with it, current cars don't work great. Compression ratios, the heat issues, etc, make it a (probable) worse choice for cars. Not sure I think flex fuel is a good idea, but I'm not sure. We should debate it, not be sure 100% that we're right (or wrong).
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October 30, 2008 at 11:58 am
Global warming is a problem. It comes due to:
- some events on the sun
- high emission of greenhouse gases, one of them is CO2, but there are many other like cow farts.
- probably the worst reason is a lot thinner ozone layer that shields Earth from high energy UV rays. Still some refrigerators and most air conditioners use CFC (ozone destructor).
Several years ago there was an alarm about ice levels and prediction that ice will disappear around year 2050, I predicted it would escalate a lot faster. The prediction was lately corrected to 2013 and I'm not happy that I was right.
What can we do? Search harmony with the nature. Like a Jedi. You can call if Force or God or whatever, if you firmly believe in it and stick to peace and harmony, it is not just you that benefits, but your surrounding too. This is a problem for short sighted people with Sith like beliefs.
All these promises from candidates are empty. They serve their sponsors, so in reality it doesn't matter much who wins and who you vote for. Search the history, which side was better for economy? It may help you decide who to vote. Four years ago I was surprised that you reelected Bush. Surprise me again.
October 30, 2008 at 4:06 pm
yeah yeah yeah, reading politics even in a SQL related forum is somewhat depressing, on the other hand, you hear from people that you don't already know you agree with.
My personal goal is to discuss issues from the frame of reference of what values do you feel are most important? How does this particular strategy you like support those values, and in what ways is the strategy in conflict with it. Few things are truly black and white, although some of the replies would beg to differ with me.
I am voting for the candidate that is getting more young people excited about becoming involved with decisions - not just the processes. I read an article that had anecdotal (not scientific research) about both "blue" and "red" young people involved in projects directly because of the Obama campaign. The article isn't the only reason I chose Obama (fairly recently) but observation of the rhetoric, and people's reaction to both of them. The reaction to much of McCain's rhetoric seems to be insular rather than inclusive (I think I have used my words incorrectly here, sorry).
Help people see they matter. That is one of my core and central values. I see the result of people believing they can make a difference coming more from the Obama campaign than from McCain (not entire lacking there, shades of it). At any rate, it is easier I think to talk with me about the differences by talking about how the different candidates can meet that value.
So that's what I would say to you Steve, what core values do you wish to examine through the lense of a presidency. I'm sure most would say a president shouldn't even get analyzed through my value lens, but I think that a LEADER should.
October 31, 2008 at 6:16 am
I spent many years doing research in Nuclear Physics so I'm with Steve (and others) in the "Go Nuclear" camp.
While wind and wave may provide short term 'top-ups' we really need to focus on both fission and fusion power to replace burning fossil fuels.
Derek
October 31, 2008 at 6:20 am
About politics.. I find it that too many are dead set on their opinions and does not re-evaluate them very often, besides of the point that many seams to have a lot of opinions about stuff they which they have not studied / read about.
October 31, 2008 at 9:53 am
I would be concerned if we were discussing global cooling. In a universe where the normal state of matter is rock solid frozen I am a global warming advocate.
History reports opulence from warming, death and famine from cooling.
Now, let's assume for no good reason that we can set the temperature of the Earth. Who will pick the temperature and will we be able to stop the cooling once we get it started?
A lot of money and control is changing hands while the scientific method is dropped in favor of opinion. That is the greatest danger we face today.
Note to those complaining about Americans: Match our per capita charity to other nations and then maybe we can talk. Have a nice day.
October 31, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Neither candidate will solve our energy crisis. Jimmy Carter created the Department of Energy back in 1977 to get us off of foreign oil and, after 31 years, we are just as dependent so government will not solve the problem and is not the answer. I believe clean energy is the answer and wind is part of it. For your home you can use old mother earth, solar, wind, and water but each of them requires using other forms of energy to work. Pickens wanting to use wind might work in the warmer climates but try that in Minnesota or other northern states especially during the winter months. Many years ago I used solar for my water heater and was able to turn the electricity off to the heater for seven months of the year but it still required some electricity for the control unit. They are always talking about electric cars but I think they need to concentrate on industries and the use of trucks, trains, and plains. Do you think that will ever happen?
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