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Environment

We Must Imagine a Life Without Oil

By Mark Hertsgaard, The Nation. Posted April 29, 2008.


The era of cheap, abundant petroleum is just about over. How ready are we to change our habits?
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It used to be that only environmentalists and paranoids warned about running out of oil. Not anymore. As climate change did over the past few years, peak oil seems poised to become the next big idea commanding the attention of governments, businesses and citizens the world over. The arrival of $119-a-barrel crude and $4-a-gallon gasoline this spring are but the most obvious signs that global oil production has or soon will peak. With global demand inexorably rising, a limited supply will bring higher, more volatile prices and eventually shortages that could provoke -- to quote the title of the must-see peak oil documentary -- the end of suburbia. If the era of cheap, abundant oil is indeed coming to a close, the world's economy and, paradoxically, the fight against climate change could be in deep trouble.

Though largely unnoticed by the world media, a decisive moment in the peak oil debate came last September, when James Schlesinger declared that the "peakists" were right. You don't get closer to the American establishment and energy business than Schlesinger, who has served as chair of the Atomic Energy Commission, head of the CIA, Defense Secretary, Energy Secretary and adviser to countless oil companies. In a speech to a conference sponsored by the Association for the Study of Peak Oil, Schlesinger said, "It's no longer the case that we have a few voices crying in the wilderness. The battle is over. The peakists have won." Schlesinger added that many oil company CEOs privately agree that peak oil is imminent but don't say so publicly.

One who does is Jeroen van der Veer, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell. Without using the term "peak oil," van der Veer warned in January, "After 2015, easily accessible supplies of oil and gas probably will no longer keep up with demand."

Of course, peak oil could arrive sooner than 2015; columnist George Monbiot has claimed in the Guardian that a Citibank report calculates the date at 2012. But even 2015 leaves a very short time in which to prepare, because modern societies were built on cheap, abundant oil.

"The world has never faced a problem like this," warned a 2005 study funded by George W. Bush's Energy Department. "Previous energy transitions (wood to coal and coal to oil) were gradual and evolutionary; oil peaking will be abrupt and revolutionary."

The United States, with its two-hour commutes, three-car families, atrophied mass transit and petroleum-based food system, is most vulnerable to an oil shock. But similar vulnerabilities exist in most industrial societies, not to mention the roaring economies of China and India, where oil consumption is rising faster even than GDP as newly middle-class consumers buy the cars they have long dreamed of.

At first glance, one might think that peak oil would help the fight against climate change. After all, less available oil should translate into less oil consumption and lower greenhouse gas emissions. But modern civilization, to borrow George W. Bush's term, is addicted to oil. If peak oil arrives before the addiction is treated, the junkie will seek even more dangerous ways to get his fix.


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See more stories tagged with: economy, climate change, peak oil, oil dependence

Mark Hertsgaard, the environment correspondent for The Nation, is the author of six books, including "Earth Odyssey: Around the World In Search of Our Environmental Future." His next book is called, "Living Through the Storm: How We Survive the Next 50 Years of Climate Change."

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Too late. Yesterday, the The New York Times announced that peak oil is here. NOW.
Posted by: Rune on Apr 29, 2008 12:27 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
NYT may not have used the term "peak oil," but they certainly described the condition and went down the list of countries and regions experiencing peaked or declining oil production. Here, see for yourself.

So, this is not a drill. This is not another short term oil crisis that will give way to long term lower prices and plentiful supply. This is not a problem you can blame on some bad guy in some place most Americans never visit and threaten and bomb him until everyone forgets what the true source of trouble is. Sorry, this is the real deal. Whatcha gonna do, America?

You can keep on forking out the last of your credit backed cash to play dumb while you destroy your economy and environment, which doesn't hold a lot of promise for your future (or that of your grandchildren and their grandchildren). Or, you can get smart, learn to conserve and prosper, and take a load off your debt service, your trade deficit, your environmental crises, your foreign policy disasters, and, yeah, your overbooked days and nights and overfull garbage cans (to say nothing of overfull pants and dresses).

Time's up. What's it gonna be?

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» Thanks so much! Posted by: boydranchitos
» RE: Thanks so much! Posted by: Squarehead
» RE: Issues? Posted by: boydranchitos
» RE: Issues? [IS a problem for me. Posted by: Squarehead
» RE: If it helps you Posted by: boydranchitos
» RE: If it helps you Posted by: Squarehead
» Freddy Mercury said it all! Posted by: Artkansas
» Ignoring Cuba? Posted by: Rune
That's not so hard to do. Stupid Author !
Posted by: maxpayne on Apr 29, 2008 1:05 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Look, we're all gonna learn to be frugal. We're all gonna get our shit together and promote alternative renewables. We're all gonna force Congress to repeal those gas guzzler tax breaks which should never have made it in the first place. We're all gonna start finding out the 26000 industrial uses of hemp and realize why we refused to keep it legal all in the name of protecting Big Oil. We're not gonna allow our public transportation infrastructure to stay in ruins after 3 decades. Instead, we're gonna make sure we're fighting for affordable and decent quality transportation.

If you wanna be a LOSER like the author, be my guest. Otherwise, who's ready to join me and be a WINNER?

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» Not in this article. Posted by: maxpayne
» RE: What we need is .... Posted by: boydranchitos
Peak Oil has Three Corollaries : Peak Credit , Peak Food, Peak BS ...
Posted by: mmckinl on Apr 29, 2008 1:07 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
We are already seeing the effects of peak food. Export quotas, export bans, rationing and skyrocketing prices. Food is all about oil. Rowing, planting, spraying, fertilizing, harvesting, processing, shipping, and distribution all use vast amounts of oil. Oil will have to be targeted at food production, lest we starve.

Peak credit, AKA peak money is not far away. Our money is created by loans monetized by checking accounts. As the economy falters new loans will shrink and shrink and as old loans are either paid off or go bad the money in our economy will shrink and shrink. Less money in the system means repeat the steps in the previous sentence only harder and faster and so on and so on until the economy is in shambles. Our financial system will have to be reengineered or there will be an economic meltdown that makes the Great Depression look swell. We need to get rid of fractional reserve banking and install a public central bank that doesn't have to borrow money to get it into the economy.

Peak oil is here. They no longer give the actual barrels of oil produced anymore. Oil production is mixed with something they call liquids. Liquids are by-products of natural gas drilling and other petro mining processes. Liquids are no where close to oil in energy efficiency or distillate production, yet they count them with crude oil production. "Liquids" by some estimates make up 10% of all barrel production figures, up from 2% a few short years ago.

Those new oil finds ? Hogwash. All the major finds announced recently have either major production obstacles or are obscenely overstated.

Brazil:Brazil's plan to become one of the world's biggest oil exporters hinges on exploiting crude six miles below the ocean surface in deposits so hot they can melt the metal used to carry uranium to nuclear plants.

Tapping what may be the biggest oil finds in the Western Hemisphere in three decades will require equipment that can withstand 18,000 pounds per square inch of pressure, enough to crush a pickup truck, pipes that can carry oil at temperatures above 500 degrees Fahrenheit (260 Celsius) and drill bits that can penetrate layers of salt more than one mile thick.

The Bakken Formation in the Dakotas and Canada; They announced over 400 billion barrels of discovered oil. The fine print says that only about 1% of this oil will ever be produced because it is not found in big pools of oil but locked in shale rock.

Mark Hertsgaard has written a fine article. I'd pay attention to what he wrote ... for your own good.

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Peak Oil Happened Already in May 2005
Posted by: bcgirl125 on Apr 29, 2008 2:06 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
According to this website:
http://www.theoildrum.com/tag/update

And this article in the Christian Science Monitor:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0806/p15s01-wmgn.html

Where does the 2012/2015 prediction come from?

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Peak Oil Is A Scam To Promote World Depopulation
Posted by: opmoc on Apr 29, 2008 2:24 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The following was written in 2004 and I believe it is very close to the truth

linked text

I am totally convinced that there is no real shortage of energy - but I am also totally convinced that the World is seriously overpopulated.

Now if you find yourself in a position of actually being able to influence the course of World events - ie you are incredibly rich and powerful - then what action should be taken that would be of the greatest benefit to both future human life - and all other forms of life on the planet?

There are in fact several potential options but it appears that the one most favoured by the ruling elites - is a very rapid cull of Billions.

This will be achieved by provoking simultaneous concurrent artificial mass crises and shortages in energy and food whilst also crashing the entire world financial system.

Its a planned Armageddon designed to reduce the World population by over 90%.

The poorest in the world will go first. Whilst millions will simply starve to death, their will also be mass war over resources that will probably go nuclear and help in the process of mass destruction.

The plan seems highly likely to go wrong - and instead of ending up with 500 Million humans - we will probably end up with none - and the cockroaches will inherit the planet.

This my dear environmentalists is what we have in store if we adopt your fascist friend's policies.

There are of course far more graceful solutions to achieve population reduction - but they won't work so quickly.

Meanwhile those in control of religions continue their policies of encouraging their flocks to have as many kids as possible.

We really are in serious shit - but all our problems are resolvable without mass genocide if we adopt sensible policies.

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This is why they invaded Iraq - HELLO???
Posted by: Tom Degan on Apr 29, 2008 2:32 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I'm sure that the fact of oil's eventual peak is not a recent discovery. They've known about it for years. This explains the unexplainable. The 2002 invasion of Iraq didn't make any sense to me at the time: Saddam Hussein had no ties to Al Quida, they were not in any way involved with the hideous attacks of September 11, 2001, they obviously had no weapons of mass destruction program _ but they had a whole shotload of oil - lots and lots and lots and lots of oil; the second or third largest oil reserves on the Planet Earth.

That is why over one million Iraqi men, women and little children have been killed. That is why over four-thousand American sevicemen and women have laid down their lives. America ignored the coming crisis for decades. Once it was on the horizen, they got lazy and desperate. Instead of turning to science to solve the problem, they turned, instead to the Military Industrial Complex.

My, goodness, that explains volumes, doesn't it?

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
Post #151: Random Thoughts

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» Even in the '60s Posted by: Artkansas
» Follow the money. Posted by: Artkansas
Proper Link:
Posted by: Tom Degan on Apr 29, 2008 2:35 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Post #151: Random Thoughts

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One word for you...
Posted by: owlbear1 on Apr 29, 2008 3:36 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Plastic.

Most of it petroleum based.

A world without oil is a world without cheap plastic.

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» RE: There is also soy-based plastics Posted by: rfrancis@godisdead.com
» We don't need no .... Posted by: ptown
» RE: We don't need no .... Posted by: channing
» RE: We don't need no .... Posted by: sasquuatch55
Reality Check
Posted by: Middle Aged Heathen on Apr 29, 2008 3:44 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I don't deny for a moment that we're somewhere near Peak Oil. I don't deny for a moment that our reliance upon internal combustion engines is killing our planet. I believe that the illegal and immoral invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq are unconscionable resource wars, and I gave up my motor vehicle when the US invaded Iraq. Those wars are not MY wars.

All that said, the math doesn't yield the result that our current energy price woes are due to Peak Oil. Since the Idiot Son of An Asshole first stole the presidency, the price of crude oil has increased 500%, while the pump price of gasoline has increased less than 100% and consumption has fallen only 20%. Correlation? Nope.

I remember the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973 and the fabricated shortage of 1979, events of an insignificant magnitude compared to Peak Oil. During both of those previous events, gas stations around the nation had "No Gas" signs up more often than not, there were long lines at the pumps, and there was rationing in place in most metropolitan areas. Aside from the prices, there's no sign of shortage now.

As much as I champion the cause of alternative, non-combustive energy sources, the only conclusion I can draw given the above is that the oil companies are bending us over the table just because they can. If anyone has logically sound evidence to the contrary, I'd dearly love to hear it.

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» RE: Reality Check Posted by: boydranchitos
Time To Stop Arguing About It
Posted by: jackburns on Apr 29, 2008 4:46 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Arguing about whether it's here or not here is pointless. Arguing about alternative energy is probably pointless.
Direct action is all that matters. Focusing on things you can control, namely your own life and daily practices.
We need more cyclists, home veggie gardens, work from home schedules, etc. I bike to work two days, work from home one day and drive two. Hopefully, that will be change where I can only drive one day. Perhaps none.
Look at the example of Willits, CA. They've been working on building a post Peak Oil community for some time.
It's just time to get busy.
And we're not going to run out of oil any time soon. That's not what Peak Oil means. However, if we conserve this resource and use it wisely, we shouldn't have any trouble producing drugs or other needed things for quiet some time. We sure don't need NASCAR, but try to tell 10 million bubba's the most important thing in their life is going away.
Peak Oil is the best thing that could possibly happen for the environment, and because of it, humans will either relearn how to live sustainably and bioregionally or cease to live.

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Attitude is everything
Posted by: zeofredo on Apr 29, 2008 4:58 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I got in trouble and have basically been blacklisted (ie. forced to go incommunicado) by certain friends of mine for merely wanting to discuss such situations as peak oil. I take no credit personally for being in the information vanguard, but am careful to find it among creditable sources who know what they're talking about. I am partly thrilled AND partly horrified to find that their predictions about the contemporary situation were/are on target. This isn't Nostradamus stuff we're talking... it's simply observational and analytical.

But this is all of no account. Many regular folks... be they working, shopping, self-involved in numerous diversions... are just not allowing themselves to accept it. We can preach all we want about changing our habits and living on less in the future, but the biggest challenge will be to accommodate the naysayers who, once they realize this has come to pass, will be a huge strain on nerves and progressive measures.

The best thing I can suggest is to have a coherent narrative ready for such skeptics which will help focus our energies on creative/productive recourse rather than continue the petty squabbling over idealogical bias that has been the norm until now.

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» Coherent narratives Posted by: Sojourner
» RE: Attitude is everything Posted by: K.P.o.t.R.
Nawww
Posted by: talkville on Apr 29, 2008 5:08 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Not 'imagine' a living without oil; confronting, adapting and changing our living without it as well as planning for it. The Imagination is ALREADY waaay over-taxed with this and myriad other contradictions of the capitalist way of living. The high-part of the hog is pretty well chewed up and thread-bare. Even those who still like to live 'high on the hog' are having to discreetly substitute other kinds of food stuffs and making that saying pure non-sense.

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» RE:Way to Posted by: boydranchitos
» RE: Way to Posted by: Squarehead
» RE: Way to Posted by: talkville
The problem is it's not happening as the peakists said.
Posted by: Livemike on Apr 29, 2008 5:48 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The reason production is going down isn't that fields are running out it's that governments in critical areas are shooting themselves in the foot. Get rid of the 80% tax on oil prices of $28 in Russia and that's half the problem gone. Allow the mexican state oil company to run itself like a business and that's half the rest. We don't have peak oil, we have peak government stupidity.

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» RE: Lemme guess.... Posted by: Jasonix
oil depletion allowance
Posted by: e rice on Apr 29, 2008 5:55 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
this was the term used in the 50s for the tax credits given to american oil companies to encourage them to develope alternatives to oil.

you see, even in the 1950s, EVERYONE KNEW oil was a finite, unrenewable commodity.

there was quite a lot of public demand for energy alternatives at the time of the oil embargo. there was an equal amount of ridicule for energy alternatives.

so here we are, thanks to more than 50 years of the american public's refusing to face facts and hold politicians and corporations accountable.

here we are, asked to 'imagine' an oil-free existence, just as the number of commericals and advertisements that are pushing 'green' products seems to be increasing geometrically. how coincidental.

cui bono? (hint--it ain't us.)

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It Ain't About Oil
Posted by: Elmo409 on Apr 29, 2008 5:56 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Everyone is up in arms because the price of oil (and everything made from it) is soaring. "Let's use ethanol instead!" say the farmers. "Let's use more coal!" say the miners. "Let's use more nuclear power!" say the electrical companies.

How about:
Let's use less energy! Let's not drag food in from other places. Let's not ship cheap clothes and shoes from other places. Let's grow vegetables instead of grass that sucks water and the HOA says it has to be cut and no dandelions allowed.

Oh, wait. That would mean we'd have to stop being stupid. Never mind.

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What might PostOil resemble?: "A World Made By Hand"
Posted by: BlueBerry PickN on Apr 29, 2008 6:06 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
well... gee, lemme GUESS what Post Oil international relations may resemble...

...can we expect that the US corporate or (those to whom the US owes money & collateral) will use the pillaged oil to *militarily strong-arm* & extort resource trade compliance from other nations..
...just as the US did with The BOMB...

In his first book since "The Long Emergency," James Howard Kunstler has speculated on a post-oil civilization in A World Made By Hand:
In his novelized description, the post-oil narrative, follows the people of a small New York town through an eventful summer, as they struggle with life... after a series of global catastrophes.

(promoted by this trailer video & site)


~~~
Spread Love...

BlueBerry Pick'n
can be found @
ThisCanadian com
~~~
"We, two, form a Multitude" ~ Ovid.
~~~
"Silent Freedom is Freedom Silenced"
"do no harm"

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» doh. more sloppy copy/pastes... Posted by: BlueBerry PickN
Clifford J. Wirth
Posted by: cjwirth on Apr 29, 2008 6:08 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Peak Oil is a catastrophe that will change the world, according to scientific reports analyzed here: http://www.peakoilassociates.com/POAnalysis.html

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» RE: Clifford J. Wirth Posted by: Falang
seazephyr
Posted by: seazephyr on Apr 29, 2008 6:24 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Peak oil visionary Michael Rupert gave us fair and dire warning in his book Crossing the Rubicon. His office was trashed and he was run out of town for his patriotic service. Go figure.

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pjjones
Posted by: pjjones on Apr 29, 2008 6:36 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Robert Kennedy, Jr., writes in Vanity Fair May 2008 The Next President's First Task
We know that nations that “decarbonize” their economies reap immediate rewards. Sweden announced in 2006 the phaseout of all fossil fuels (and nuclear energy) by 2020. In 1991 the Swedes enacted a carbon tax . . . and as a result thousands of entrepreneurs rushed to develop new ways of generating energy from wind, the sun, and the tides, and from woodchips, agricultural waste, and garbage. Growth rates climbed to upwards of three times those of the U.S.

Iceland was 80 percent dependent on imported coal and oil in the 1970s and was among the poorest economies in Europe. Today, Iceland is 100 percent energy-independent, with 90 percent of the nation’s homes heated by geothermal and its remaining electrical needs met by hydro. The International Monetary Fund now ranks Iceland the fourth most affluent nation on earth. The country, which previously had to beg for corporate investment, now has companies lined up to relocate there to take advantage of its low-cost clean energy.

It should come as no surprise that California, America’s most energy-efficient state, also possesses its strongest economy.

The United States has far greater domestic energy resources than Iceland or Sweden does. We sit atop the second-largest geothermal resources in the world. The American Midwest is the Saudi Arabia of wind; indeed, North Dakota, Kansas, and Texas alone produce enough harnessable wind to meet all of the nation’s electricity demand. As for solar, according to a study in Scientific American, photovoltaic and solar-thermal installations across just 19 percent of the most barren desert land in the Southwest could supply nearly all of our nation’s electricity needs without any rooftop installation, even assuming every American owned a plug-in hybrid.

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» RE: Wonderful and informative post Posted by: boydranchitos
» RE: pjjones cajones Posted by: HoboHomo
bozhidar bob balkas
Posted by: bozhidar on Apr 29, 2008 6:40 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
we've had four 'gods'. three of them are still going strong. all were semitic; with dark skin.
but, dear folk, none of them had up to date a wife.
no wonder they are frustated, angry, etc. so, they made us stupid, violent, greedy to assuage their own miseries. and miseries, someone said, love company.
'gods' have imposed on us the greatest scoundrels (tho not all of them are) 'god' could make.
(but, goddamn it, says i, aren't they good actors!)
and the speeches! that only 'gods' could understand. and one is ooh soo handsome!
it's awesome! 'promises', just fabulous! and the glittering generalities! to understand them, a housewife must run to a dictionary to find what the lofty words mean.
caveat, please; when i say "a housewife", i mean to say that a housewife is not stupid; she is trained by education to think of self as stupid. and most men rub it in.
me too. i have been trained also to think, Who, me? i know nothin abt nothin! anyway, who cares!
but they have been doing this to us for scant 15,000 yrs. so, what's another thousand or two for us very patient people?

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Carl F
Posted by: luckycef on Apr 29, 2008 6:47 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
As we keep seeing the energy mess and peak oil and Green energy and bio fuels. Why is the most abundant and friendly source of energy being left out. the power of HYDROGEN!!!!!!! It is clean and the byproduct is water and water is another resource that is threatened.
We have a 2 fold winner here. Clean source of an abundant resource with the byproduct WATER another resource in danger. It is time we talk and make this happen. hydrogen has been around a long time and it is time to build the infrastructure and the auto's and sytems needed to use this abundant source of power.
Lets move on to the Hydrogen revolution!!!!!

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» RE: Carl F Posted by: bornxeyed
» RE: Carl F Posted by: sunlakedude
» RE: Carl F Posted by: bornxeyed
"Visualize World Peace. . ."
Posted by: thoughtcriminal on Apr 29, 2008 7:16 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I bet that this will work just as well.

How about getting your hands dirty and changing your lifestyle, moving your retirement funds out of your lame corporate pension scheme and into renewable energy investments, and not fattening the wallets of Texas oil billionaires, Saudi oil sheiks, Iraqi puppet dictators, Nigerian puppet dictators, Chadian puppet dictators, and South American bosses like Uribe and Chavez?

How about taking on your local corporate utility and getting it replaced with a local public power utility that won't screw you over on a daily basis (like Sacramento has?). How about not buying any more gasoline at all, but going with locally produced biodiesel or and electric car?

The money you are spending on fossil fuel energy is going to the worst people on the planet. How does that make you feel?

In other words, how about putting your money where your mouth is? Corporate America is covered in bogus greenwashing - I really don't want to see individuals adopting the same mentality (GO SOLAR! stickers on Hummers).

Or you can sit around imagining things - I like to imagine that I will someday meet some aliens with a flying saucer who will take me on a tour of the solar system - wouldn't that be cool?

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Cruel Irony
Posted by: bcain on Apr 29, 2008 7:15 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The cruel irony is that we haven't needed oil except as a lubricant for decades. Answers about the energy crisis will not be found within the same framework that has been established to keep most of us enslaved in the first place.

Alternative forms of energy have been known in the black world for decades, but the release of this information would alter the geo-political imbalance that those in control are loathe to relinquish.

Stop looking at this problem through conventional means, and start doing your homework.

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Do What You Can
Posted by: Southern Gal on Apr 29, 2008 7:27 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Change your own lifestyle, work to educate and influence your neighbors and set an example, work with your local government, continue to contact and press your state and national representatives and senators regarding financial support and policies that call for alternative sources of energy. It takes ordinary citizens interacting with others to make challenging ideas more acceptable and the norm in communities and society at large.

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» RE: Do What You Can Posted by: e rice
A lot of BS
Posted by: sre on Apr 29, 2008 8:08 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
In the US, we do as we want. We'll have higher prices, but not much other effect on the economy or our lifestyle. Maybe in 100 or 200 years it will matter, not now. Who cares about the rest of the world?

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» RE: A lot of BS Posted by: sunlakedude
» RE: A lot of BS Posted by: Squarehead
Some people already have
Posted by: afrothetics2 on Apr 29, 2008 8:12 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The poor are invisible. Whenever reports of an economic downturn, such as a recession, are published you won't find them in front of a camera telling it like it is. No one wants to hear the "really bad news." I've always used a simple formula, if it's a recession for the political elite, it's a depression for the rest of us. What's it's like for the poor? Try asking them, they haven't used oil in years.

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By the way, you don't have to "imagine" living in a world without petroleum. Read below.
Posted by: maxpayne on Apr 29, 2008 9:40 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
http://www.informationdistillery.com/hemp.htm

The Many Uses of Hemp
by Margot Collins

Hemp is one of the most useful plants on Earth.

For thousands of years, humans have used parts of the hemp plant for food, textiles, paper, fabric, and fuel oil. Today, modern processing technologies have made it possible to create alternatives to gasoline, plastic, and other petroleum products that can help the human race lessen its reliance on polluting and expensive fossil fuels.

The hemp plant is a renewable resource that can be produced domestically. It grows quickly, naturally resists plant diseases, requires little weeding, thrives in most climates, and enriches the soil it grows in.

Here are some of its most important applications:

...

Fuel

For centuries, Hemp oil was used as lamp oil. It began to be phased out in America in the 1870s when petroleum was introduced.

Today, hemp oil can be used to create biofuels to replace gasoline for diesel engines. Unlike fossil fuels, biofuels are renewable and produce less of the greenhouse gas carbon monoxide.

Plastic Alternatives

Standard plastic is made from fossil fuels using toxic chemicals. Almost everything we buy is wrapped in cellophane and our landfills are full of it. A variety of alternatives to plastic can be made from hemp.

In 1941, Henry Ford held a media event where he swung an axe at a prototype car body made of hemp and other plant material to prove its strength. The technology was never put into mass production, cars continued to be made of steel, and plastics made from petrochemicals became the norm.

Fortunately, the number of available products made from hemp plastics is on the increase as awareness of the importance of developing sustainable alternatives grows.

...

Hemp's Past and Future

If hemp is so useful and practical, why hasn't everyone heard of it? The answer lies primarily in politics. In the United States, growing hemp is largely prohibited and there is a great fear around it due to its resemblance to marijuana. Hemp may look like marijuana, however it does not contain the active chemicals that cause mind-altering effects.

Historically, hemp was important in America and several of the founding fathers grew it on their estates. Thomas Jefferson himself said, "Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth and protection of the country." There were times when farmers were legally required to grow it. During World War Two, the American government encouraged farmers to grow it to help aid the war effort.

In the 1930s, a "reefer madness" campaign began in the United States to stir up fear around marijuana and hemp. Today it is clear that these beginnings of "the war on drugs" were pushed into being by the newspaper, cotton, and petroleum industries which have all benefited financially from hemp prohibition. There are many people in the United States working to make growing hemp legal, however for the time being the laws remain restrictive.

In Canada, the cultivation of hemp has been allowed by the federal government since 1998 with a special license. Fortunately, as hemp becomes a growing agricultural sector in Canada and other countries, the availability of hemp based products will continue to grow worldwide.

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What happened...
Posted by: Feltixx on Apr 29, 2008 9:53 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I remember back in the late 70s... What happened to the commercials and public service anouncements to conserve energy and clean up our planet? What happened to the calls for new energy sources and new ways to use and conserve what we have? What happened to "American Ingenuity"? In a nutshell I guess... What the hell happened to common sense? There was a poll done in my region recently that asked people if the higher gas prices had effected their driving habits. Almost 70% said they had made no changes to the way or amount that they drive! It just amazes me. Wouldn't it be interesting to see what would happen if the demand for gasoline dropped by about 15 or 20% or more over the course of a month or two. I can see it happening, just not quickly enough. Over the weekend I stopped at a gas station / market to buy some groceries and there was not one person there buying gas. (very unusual) Not only that, but I'm noticing less cars on the roads around here even. On that same trip I passed a total of two cars... at like 7:00 pm too. It was eerily quiet outside the gas station too with no cars driving by. I just wish it would spread quicker. Many say that the average person can't do anything about it, well I say do what you can, however little it may seem. A few million like-minded "little" persons really could bring about change.

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» RE: What happened... Posted by: AkamaiAthiest
Here's the choice your family faces
Posted by: Jasonix on Apr 29, 2008 10:44 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
In the coming months and years, you have a choice to make that will affect the future options available to your children:

1. Move to the city, hoping that your children will be talented and lucky enough to compete their way to the top of the social heap. When the economy shrinks, everything is going to pull back into the urban centers. If you want your kids to have any chance of getting a good job, you need to move to the city. BUT there is also the chance that your kids will fail miserably, and when you fail miserably in the city, you're in a world of hurt. Your best options might be joining a street gang or becoming a prostitute.

2. Stay out of the city, where you probably are now. If you do this, you will eventually lose your job when it becomes too expensive to commute, and be left in a place that suddenly looks a lot like an Appalachian coal mining town. Your children will be the next generation of rural poor. When you're rural poor, you have much less chance of ever moving up the ladder than an urban poor person does. That's why boat-loads of Catholics landed in NYC and other cities and were upper-middle class inside two generations (where they now whine about how other Americans don't trust members of a hierarchical religion that claims the divine right to rule all humankind, thinking that this is some great bigotry on par with anti-Semitism and racism), while rural folks whose families were in America for far longer remained poor until the day when it was easy enough to travel an hour to work.

That was the past, and it looks like it's going to be the future, too. What you decide now may set the class-level of your family for generations to come.

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» RE: Telecommuting or Drive a Motorcycle Posted by: rfrancis@godisdead.com
sweden
Posted by: e rice on Apr 29, 2008 10:57 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
if i remember correctly, the swedes (in the 70s?) also designed a house powered, at least in part, by the gases from household sewage.

that, combined with insulation techniques and other features, resulted in a house completely independent of outside power sources.

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Burn baby, burn
Posted by: willymack on Apr 29, 2008 11:47 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Perroleum, coal,either solid or liquid, natural or unnatural gas, that frozen methane at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere, and "biofuels" all SUCK. Anyone with a functioning mind knows damn well they all POLLUTE our atmosphere, and if this insanity is continued, that pollution will produce gastly results for everything alive. Population control and new energy sources not based on combustion will be the only things that will save us from a scenario more gruesome than any disaster movie. Oh, yeah; forget about nuclear power too. That's a dead(emphasis on DEAD) loss as well.

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Getting along without oil...
Posted by: Watercolors on Apr 29, 2008 2:13 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
As long as there are profits to be made from oil we will be stuck with air pollution and high costs of transportation, electricity, and petrochemically produced foods. Such a pity when sustainable clean fuel production should always have been a more important goal than landing on the moon.

Solar? Wind? Tidal? The technology is available. Hemp? Hemp grows in soils that won't support food crops, requires no petrochemicals. Oil from non-mind-bending hemp could fuel out planet, clothe us, clean our bodies and our homes, and make sails for worldwide high tech transport.

Hemp was once the backbone of our national paper and fibre industries. Back to the future? Maybe one day when big oil is worn out.

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RussBBinVegas@aol.com
Posted by: RussBBinVegas on Apr 29, 2008 2:30 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
How can anyone have sympathy for the clueless people of this country, who refuse to see the light. Maybe this is anecdotal, but consider. I live in the heart of a very flat city, Las Vegas, and 3 years ago bought an inexpensive bicycle, and now do ALL my local chores, gym, library, grocery store, on my bike. I'm getting awesome exercise, I'm not burning gas, and I'm not polluting. And guess what, I see almost NO OTHER bicyclists going about routine business, just the usual masses of car traffic, even at $3.65 a gallon. It will take a CATACLYSMIC EVENT to change America, and for all we know, one Mr. Dick Cheney has exactly that in store for us, the "october surprise". Meanwhile, how can a person not be disgusted by our on-going greedy wasteful consumer society.

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Nationalize the American Oil Companies..!
Posted by: TJ-stars4peace on Apr 29, 2008 2:35 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
We must Nationalize the American Oil Companies and all holdings..

This would cut costs by 30-33% and still leave $50-60 Billion for developing alternative energy and also new technologies...

Also this would create an economic boom that would effect every American..

OPEC is 49% the American oil companies if oil is $120 per barrel they pay only around $40 dollars per barrel, and a barrel of oil is 42 gallons per barrel, not 55 gallons as many presume it to be..so at $120 per barrel we're paying $3.00 per gallon about for raw crude oil..

This would be the Manhattan type project for energy so many politicians speak of without any idea of what to do..

Eventually all major energy should be Nationalized oil and electric are vital infrastructure and national security assets..

Same as the Interstate highway system..a necessity..

Allowing Exxon-Mobil to bring America to it's knees is just stupid, and against our national best interest and security and sovereignty..

Eventually we could even cot costs to consumers by more than 33%..

Also hire more employees as many have been let go for the sake of profit and the oil infrastructure is suffering and failing and needs upgrading..

At the same time with $50-60 billion per year every year we could launch a new era of energy development and there are already new technologies on the horizon effecting solar the nano tubes super black that has been developed and others..Windmills..

The Sun every second creates more energy than man has ever used in our entire history on the Earth every second and we aren't taking advantage of it..!

Also nationalizing the oil companies doesn't mean it can't still be traded on the market as in every other state run oil entity or nation..

Remember the Oil Companies are not in the business of putting themselves out of business..

Nationalizing the oil Companies will accomplish this eventually and think of the benefits to our environment as well as the end of all the corruption due top the Oil Cartel and Lobbyists..!

Maybe we would also avoid more senseless oil based wars..which cost of hundreds of billions think of what we could have done to develop alternate energy with the over $600 or $678 Billion soon we have pissed away in Iraq not to mention all the money it will cost to care for all these wounded and troubled vets coming home..The Pentagon so ill treats ignores..

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Read it and weep...
Posted by: thoughtcriminal on Apr 29, 2008 3:15 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
By 1913, Edison had announced the result of some fifty thousand experiments conducted during seven painstaking years - a radical new energy-self-sufficient home. He called it the Twentieth Century Suburban Residence. Ostentatiously overstuffed with every modern gadget and appliance from a coffee percolator to a washing machine, from room heaters and coolers to phonographs and tiny movie projectors, the mansion was an electric marvel. Every device and system, basement to roof, was powered by batteries replenished continuously by a small-scale on-site household electrical generator.

The New York Times, September 15, 1912:

"The Powers of Darkness have suffered another rout. . . for Mr. Edison has perfected a combination of gasoline engine, generator, and storage batteries by which, for a modest expense, every man can make his own electricity in his own cellar, utterly and for all time independent of the nearness or farness of the big electrical companies. He can buy a farm in the Middle West or New England. . . He can erect a tent in the desert, if he is so minded, and shave himself the next morning with water heated on an electric stove. . ."

- excerpt from "Internal Combustion" by Edwin Black - author of IBM and the Holocaust.

Not a book that the New York Times would want to review. . . William Keenard of Carlyle would get all upset. . . and there's a war on, damn it.

This has been the Hundred Years War of our time - the struggle for control of oil. World War One broke out in Mesopotamia when the Germans tried to horn in on British and Russian oil concessions with the aid of the Ottoman Turks. World War II broke out in the Pacific as Japan moved to secure military control of Indonesian oilfields, Hitler's major military actions all led to the same place - the Central Asian and Middle Eastern oilfields - the planned fuel base for his Thousand Year Reich.

In 1914, Edison and Ford were poised to launch the first generation of electric cars - a major threat to the new gasoline market of Standard Oil, who, you will recall, was being forced out of the lighting market by the new electric bulb (previously, they had sold kerosene for lamps, primarily).

They did not succeed. Why not? Edwin Black says this:
"The answer was seeded long before 1914, centuries earlier when timber was the greatest power in the world and therefore the protected realm of monarchs. . . Timber was worth killing for because it was the secret behind the earliest making of metal, the stuff of wealth and weaponry. When the trees became too scarce, the monarchs turned to monopolists and corporate scoundrels for a new burning substance, this one not green but black. It was coal.

Thus, the first private international energy cartel began in England centuries ago with a secretive Newcastle order called the Hostmen. The Hostmen powered the Industrial Revolution but poisoned the air and water as part of their bargain. . .

When the electric vehicle took hold at the end of the nineteenth century, circumstances- both popular and predatory - combined to replace battery cars with internal combustion, and in the process replaced clean technology with burning oil. . ."


A few years after 1914, Prohibition was passed, and the growing ethanol fuel business came to a crashing halt (in 1919), further locking in petroleum-based gasoline as the world's transportation fuel. Farmers fell into the grips of bankers (their excess grain could no longer be converted to ethanol and sold for cash due to Prohibition), and the rate of foreclosures skyrocketed - this, folks, is where the agribusiness giants got their start. . .

All true, but not in the high school textbooks, is it?

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» You are wrong on electric cars. Posted by: AsteroidMiner
» YOU are wrong on electric cars. Posted by: leighsure
» Thanks TC. Posted by: maxpayne
» RE: ead it and weep... Posted by: cab
Terrorist
Posted by: HeKnew on Apr 29, 2008 3:54 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Wasn't the situation supposed to get BETTER if we gave up our freedom?

Direct Democracy

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» That was Hitler's line Posted by: AsteroidMiner
Peace in Iraq = Cheap Oil
Posted by: Rosasharn on Apr 29, 2008 4:20 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Does anyone else suspect that as long as America refuses to accept DEFEAT in Iraq, that OPEC will continue to ratchet up the price? Get it yet, America? No. Ratchet up the price. Get it Yet America? No. Ratchet up the price. Ad infinitum until one day, when America is through trying to TAKE the oil, and . . . we leave that nation. Wa La . . . lower prices!

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» RE: Peace in Iraq = Cheap Oil Posted by: boydranchitos
We need to expand the definition of treason...
Posted by: Tim Brown on Apr 29, 2008 5:17 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
...these people - the oil CEOs, those in the government responsible for keeping tabs on these things, the neocons who played us - saw this coming a long itme ago and decided to cash in on it. They may not have been working for a foreign state, but they sure as hell were working against the best interests of our nation. They are traitors to the rest of us and should be punished accordingly.

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Iam converting to all wood for heat and hot water, no war required!
Posted by: yale on Apr 29, 2008 8:08 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
We have always burned wood for primary heat and used about 100 gallons of oil per year for hot water in the summer. I turned our oil fired boiler off and dont want to ever turn it on unless we cant be here in winter. Hot water in summer comes from a solar water heater installed on the back wall of a greenhouse behind our house. The domestic hot water is piped underground into the existing hot water system. If the sun dont shine it has a wood stove with hot water coils to heat the super insulated overhead tanks. It may sound complicated but its a very basic simple system, and very inexpensive to build. I drain the whole system in the fall and hot water is made from coils on the wood furnace in the house. The solutions are there to get by without oil, if you cant burn wood there is also pellet stoves, they make no visible smoke, and pellet burners can be adapted to almost any oil fired furnace or boiler or hot water heater.

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Oil does not come from dinosaurs
Posted by: cab on Apr 30, 2008 8:13 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The earth is swimming in oil, drowning in oil. The big problem the oil companies have is keeping the spigot shut off, keeping the huge oil finds quiet, buying up the wildcatters who keep discovering oil. Meantime, the capped oil rigs get uncapped and lo and behold, they are full of oil and ready to go. Brazil had a new discovery lately of 65 billion barrels of oil. We have oil everywhere. It bubbles up from deep in the earth, and has nothing to do with dinosaurs getting squished and turning into oil.

Check out who is paying the environmental groups to lobby to prevent drilling for oil in Alaska and elsewhere. It is none other than the oil companies themselves. What better way to provide an excuse not to drill, not to build refinereries.

Long as the oil is "scarce" the price can be high and the control over the populace higher yet, and the eugenicist plans to depopulate the earth by 80 to 90 percent can proceed.

Anybody watched Alex Jones' film online called "Endgame?"

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Overpopulation is a huge lie and myth
Posted by: cab on Apr 30, 2008 8:31 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Example #2 - Lets say we give all 6 billion people on the planet 1,000 square feet each, did you realize that they all would fit very easily into the state of Texas (with over 1,300 billion square feet left over!).

Sounds amazing doesn't it? Don't believe me? I will PROVE it!

Texas has 262,015 square miles of land
Which equals 7,304,558,976,000 square feet (262,015 x 27,878,400*) in Texas
Each person gets 1,000 square feet of land
The world population is currently almost 6 billion people (as of 1999)
6 billion x 1,000 square feet per person equals 6,000,000,000,000 square feet needed
Square feet in Texas

Square feet needed for 6 billion people 7,304,558,976,000
(subtract)
6,000,000,000,000
Left over space PROVING example #2 1,304,558,976,000


We are overpopulated only in the eyes of the Luciferians who can't micromanage 6.5 billion people, which is why they are working to eliminate 6 billion of us. Watch Alex Jones film online "Endgame."

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Oil supply will dwindle exponentially fast, sadly, not this year.
Posted by: jvisher on Apr 30, 2008 9:40 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
And thank god oil and coal will be gone, the sooner the better for the global climate. Humanity with oil is no different than yeast in a barrel of sugar water - we will consume energy until it runs out, or, if the energy is sufficient, we will die in our own wastes.

An enlightened modern people would put their hearts and minds into building a culture and an infrastructure able to survive on renewable energy resources, but that is not us. Some of us are enlightened, many of us are modern, but there are too few enlightened modern people to change the world. In hindsight it will be said that hydrocarbons were wasted on us, that we didn't know how to effectively use this truly remarkable resource.

My hope is that hydrocarbons run out before the resulting pollution levels become intolerable, and really screw up the biosphere. This is a hope, and by no means, a certainty. After oil, the human population will recede to what it was before hydrocarbons, perhaps 500 million folks, a lot less than now, but none the less, many for a large species.

65 million years ago an asteroid slammed into Earth and 1/2 the species went extinct. Humanity is our eras asteroid. Life will go on missing 1/2 the species. Millions of years from today, long after Darwin has been forgotten, there will be a new zoo filled with new species derived from those that survive our current catastrophe. From H. Sapiens, a presumed survivor of this wreck, will spring a great variety of life forms. Let your imagination run wild.

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wanna see some cool shit?
Posted by: DaBear on Apr 30, 2008 12:04 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
go to the gamers who simulated this.. well, a temporary shock not a full blown petrocollapse.

It was fun playing the game, reduced stress, etc. as we watched the real thing play out, replete with teh head-in-sand idiots who claim all this is b.s. The real thing's gonna be much worse than the temporary shock we simmed.

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Plastic
Posted by: RedNeckRed on Apr 30, 2008 6:52 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
One thing I will be happy about. Get rid of the damn blister plastic that Target, and Wal-Mart package things in. I hate that crap; should be made illegal. Over half the time, I can't find a knife or a pair of scissors to open them with. We should start with that. I wonder how much the item would cost without the blister plastic. I know what they will want to do; charge use more for the blister plastic. That should be against the law. I am ready to see that go. Drinks should come in returnable glass bottles. When I was a kid, all my toys were either made out of steel, or wood.
Folks, there are a million things we could be doing.

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Finding truth on the web is very unlikely
Posted by: AsteroidMiner on May 1, 2008 12:35 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The search engines do not understand the web pages they find for you. They are
just machines. They have no idea of whether or not the web pages they find tell
the truth. In the US, we have "freedom of speech," which means that nobody has
to prove that anything is true before publishing it. We also have a coal industry
that has a gross income of $100 BILLION per year. That $100 BILLION per year
could be easily sunk by the nuclear industry unless you can be persuaded that
nuclear power is dangerous. [The truth is that a coal fired power plant puts 100
times as much radiation into your environment as the nuclear power plant. The
truth is also that natural background radiation is 10 times what you get from a coal
fired power plant.] Do the coal companies have an incentive to lead you astray?
Yes. Is $100 BILLION per year enough incentive? Yes. Can the coal industry
afford to hire doctors, economists, environmentalists, website designers, computer
scientists, psychologists, advertising agencies, and lots of other people on $100
BILLION per year? Of course. Can the coal industry afford to set up hundreds
of web pages on hundreds of computers in hundreds of locations and "game" the
search engines on $100 BILLION per year? Yes. And they do.

How hard is it to find the truth on the web? Very hard. Most web sites have a
monetary reason for existing. People who know the truth and are willing to tell
you the truth don't have much economic reason to do so. It is hard to make money
by telling the truth. Nobody ever went broke by underestimating the intelligence
or overestimating the gullibility of the average person. So how are you going to
find out the truth for sure? There is only one way. You have to become a
scientist. You will have to spend a minimum of 4 years in college to get the
minimum degree, the B.S. You should really spend more like 15 years and get a
post doctoral degree.

THERE ARE ZERO HUMAN AUTHORITIES.
Scientists do not vote on what is the truth. There is only one vote and Nature
owns it. We find out what Nature's vote is by doing Scientific [public and
replicable] experiments. Scientific [public and replicable] experiments are the
only source of truth. [To be public, it has to be visible to other people in the
room. What goes on inside one person's head isn't public unless it can be seen on
an X-ray or with another instrument.]
Science is a simple faith in Scientific experiments and a simple absolute lack of
faith in everything else. Do not trust any human, not even yourself. Trust only
the experiments that you personally perform. Otherwise, you will be misled.

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The coal industry depends on your irrational fear of nuclear
Posted by: AsteroidMiner on May 1, 2008 2:28 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The coal industry depends on your irrational fear of all things
nuclear to maintain its $100 Billion per year cash flow. The coal
industry knows perfectly well that nuclear power would have
driven coal out of business long ago if it were not for your
irrational fear of all things nuclear. It is greatly to the coal
industry's advantage for you to continue to advocate sources of
energy, such as solar and wind, that they know just won't work or
are so expensive as to be economically unfeasible. Every time
you advocate wind energy or solar energy as better than nuclear,
you are giving the coal industry a chance to continue causing
global warming for another year. Every time you advocate wind
energy or solar energy as better than nuclear, you are taking us
one year closer to the collapse of civilization and the extinction of
the human race. The only thing we can do to stop global
warming RIGHT NOW is to stop all objections to nuclear power
and unanimously advocate immediate conversion of all coal fired
power plants worldwide to nuclear.

Americans are paranoid about all things nuclear. NMR [Nuclear
Magnetic Resonance] had to be renamed MRI [Magnetic
Resonance Imaging] to get sick people into the scanner. The only
thing that changed was the name, yet patients refused "NMR"
scans, but willingly get "MRI" scans. Apparently, the average
American doesn't know that all matter, including people, is made
of atoms and that atoms have nuclei. The NMR/MRI machine
aligns the spins of the nuclei in the atoms in the patient using a big
magnet. Since different atoms have different nuclear spin
resonances, the NMR/MRI machine can see one element at a time.
I have no idea what the sick sick patients were thinking, but that
kind of thinking is what got us into the climate crisis that we are
now in.

32 countries have nuclear power plants. Only 9 have nuclear
bombs. The 4 biggest sources of CO2 have both. They are the
US, China, India and Russia. Canadian Candu reactors run on
UNenriched uranium. Thus proliferation of nuclear weapons is
an irrelevant issue. Every country should have the advantage of
American and Canadian technology so that nuclear power will be
the safest and cleanest energy available.

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A truthful book about nuclear power
Posted by: AsteroidMiner on May 1, 2008 2:37 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The low carbon source of the electricity has to be nuclear
to replace the base load capacity of coal.
Read: "Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy", by B. Comby
English edition, 2001, 345 pp. (soft cover), 38 Euros
TNR Editions, 266 avenue Daumesnil, 75012 Paris, France;
ISBN 2-914190-02-6
order from: http://www.comby.org/livres/livresen.htm
Read a review of this book by the American Health Physics Society at:
http://www.comby.org/media/
articles/articles.in.english/
HealthPhysics-NUC-July2002.htm

www.ecolo.org
Association of Environmentalists For Nuclear Energy [EFN]

Nuclear power is 30% cheaper than the coal power we have been
duped into using. We have 5000 years worth of nuclear fuel if
we recycle it rather than waste it as we do now. Nuclear is also
the safest, cleanest and cheapest form of energy available.

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Why haven't successive Administrations at least planned for this eventuality?
Posted by: Woodpecker on May 1, 2008 3:13 AM   
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In the quarter century since the Arab "oil shock" of October 1973, why hasn't any Presidential Administration since Carter's tried to draw up contingency plans for what happens when the oil starts to run out? Answer, "short-termism", just hoping that the issue will solve itself, the bane of Western politics!


Terry

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Oil is a lubricant. Not a fuel
Posted by: motamanx on May 1, 2008 10:41 AM   
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..and if we had used it as such there would have been enough for an eternity.

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» future oil is a lubricant Posted by: AsteroidMiner
Containment Buildings
Posted by: AsteroidMiner on May 2, 2008 12:36 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
All Western nuclear power plants have Containment Buildings
which protect the world outside from anything that can possibly
happen in the core. Western containment buildings are why
Chernobyl cannot happen in the US. Containment buildings are
pressure vessels, unlike the building the Chernobyl reactor was in.
The walls, ceiling and floor are a minimum of 1 meter [about 39
inches] thick and HEAVILY reinforced with steel. There is so
much steel reinforcing rod that when you look at one under
construction, you wonder where there will be any room for
concrete. There is no explosion that could ever happen inside the
core or the containment building that would have any chance at all
of making a hole in the containment building. The containment
building is many times stronger than required to contain any
explosion that could happen there.

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2012
Posted by: Menopausal Mick on May 2, 2008 10:02 AM   
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There's that date again 2012. I see that year proposed for dire happenings all over the place.

If we, as a nation, don't wake up...I'm going to have to join those who are alarmed about what the state of the world will be in 2012.

How to wake up the sleeping middle class? I have no new ideas on that score. When foreclosures and outrageous prices at the pump don't do it...not to mention food riots in the rest of the world...well, I often feel like I'm shouting into a hurricane of complacency.

I lived in Germany for several years. The Germans will be just fine when the effects of peak oil are felt. The country is mainly composed of self-sufficient small villages that have their own food production and usually even their own beer label.

In this country, we've done our best to kill off the small farm. I live in the country and have raised my own food before and am as busy as I can be getting ready to go off-the-grid. Were I a city-dweller, I'd be ordering seeds from Seeds of Change and planting a backyard garden.

Those of us who are activists must find a way to unite in a focused effort to take back our Democracy so we have the tools in place to deal with all the rest.

Menopausal Mick@phukkoff.com

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We must imagine life without oil
Posted by: rewassenich on May 3, 2008 1:51 PM   
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It is high time the US concentrated on bio fuel without crying and claiming it will cause food prices to rise sky high. The US government must drop all agricultural subsidies, paying farmers to leave the fields fallow. Use all available land to grow plants suitable for bio fuel. Brazil could do it, Brazil produces bio fuel covering 70% of their gasoline needs. Why can't we? On top of it, it will be 'Made in America', no more money to the oil sheiks. When the oil price hits $150/barrel, we'll surely go 100% bio fuel!

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Nature says adapt or die
Posted by: Last Chance on May 4, 2008 2:39 PM   
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We humans are not only addicted to oil, we grow our profits by growing our economy from our growing population. But planet Earth cannot swell and expand to abundantly and inexhaustibly supply us forever. Finally we are too many billions of people on not enough land to feed us.

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Can You Imagine A Life In Balance ?
Posted by: Last Chance on May 4, 2008 2:57 PM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
We must create a life in harmony with the Earth and at peace with each other. Otherwise our society will collapse in ecocide and our species will go extinct. To survive: 1. Peacefully reduce the human population through family planning clinics Worldwide and 2. Return to family farming communities.
If Saving the Earth

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rn
Posted by: mnatra on May 7, 2008 6:29 PM   
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We all know who they are.They are not only the government officials,or the CEO s of the corporations or the OPEC countries or oil companies.They are our friends, families co workers our doctors lawyers and our check out persons.You see them driving fast in their SUV s chatting on a cell phone while they buy... buy...buy! and drive home to their Mac mansions.
You cant really single out the real causes of the eventual demise of our economy by blaming OPEC and big oil.look in the mirror.

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