From: The Caucus Blog – NYTimes.com
Senate Democrats on Tuesday abandoned all hopes of passing even a slimmed-down energy bill before they adjourn for the summer recess, saying that they did not have sufficient votes even for legislation tailored narrowly to respond to the Gulf oil spill.
Although the majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, sought to blame Republicans for sinking the energy measure, the reality is that Democrats are also divided over how to proceed on the issue and had long ago given up hope of a comprehensive bill to address climate change.
…
“Ask anyone outside of Washington, and they’ll tell you that this isn’t a Democrat or a Republican issue, it’s an American issue,” Mr. Kerry said. “It’s American troops whose lives are endangered because we’re dependent on oil companies in countries that hate us. It’s American consumers who are tired not just of prices at the pump that soar each summer, but sick and tired of our oil dependency that makes Iran $100 million richer every day that Washington fails to respond.”
h/t to Tom Nelson
GM says:
August 4, 2010 at 10:00 am
James Sexton says:
August 4, 2010 at 8:55 am
GM,
i do not want to intervene in the nice conversation between the two of you.
but what seems to be missing in all this talk about malthusian limits is this:
inventiveness ( if that is a word ) of people in need to find an alternative and science.
these two are phenomenal and very unpredictable variables, that you cannot ignore.
just some hundred years ago, they were worrying about what to do with all the horse excrements in NYC. now horse drwan buggies are a novelty.
you are worrying about population explosions. and the indians and chinese ( combinedly about a third of the world pop. ) now are talking about “when they are going to reach the population peak”, before a worrisome crash.
Rhys Jaggar says: August 4, 2010 at 3:04 am
7. Think about the enormous amount of sunlight in your SW deserts: perfect for solar power, wouldn’t you say????
Actually, no I wouldn’t say. I’d say it shows your ignorance of the desert southwest. Yep, there’s plenty of sunshine. Yep, it can generate power. But who is there to use it? The power has to be transmitted to where people live and use the power with concomitant transmission losses. The transmission infrastructure would also have to be developed to get the power to where people are located.
Another point: how do you keep whatever you are using to generate the power clean? Atmospheric dust in the southwest contains calcium carbonate which dissolves in the slightly acidic rain. When this lands and evaporates it forms calcium carbonate blotches. If these aren’t cleaned they continue to accumulate. This is the source for the ubiquitous caliche in the southwest. Now these blotches can be cleaned off solar panels or mirrors, but that requires water. Oops, the southwest is a desert. Where do you obtain the water? Many types of solar plants also need water to generate the power. Again, where do you obtain the water? It’s environmentalist fighting environmentalist, see http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2236
GM says:
August 4, 2010 at 10:00 am
I am not for totalitarianism for totalitarianism sake
Whew! That’s a relief. If one is going to be for totalitarianism, it should be for the “right” reasons. The ends justify the means, eh?
Pamela Gray says:
August 4, 2010 at 7:56 am
________________________________
My lord, Pamela. . . WHY were you ever a democrat ??? ; )
GM says:
August 4, 2010 at 10:00 am
Denier connotates a few things, many link it to a past use of the word in relation to the Holocaust. So, hopefully you can see how some might be a bit miffed to be painted with the same brush. Further, it implies people deny the climate is changing when quit to the contrary, most here understand the earth’s climate is constantly changing and don’t believe the change we’re seeing today is very unusual, or at least can’t rule out that this is part of the normal changing that occurs. Alarmist is used (by me) because I’ve can’t think of a more descriptive term, yet I hope it doesn’t come off as demeaning in any way. But, it is simply a way of describing a person the sounds the alarms to what they view as an impending climate catastrophe.
“People should have as much freedom as possible, but only within the limits of what doesn’t hurt the long-term survival chances of the species.”
How do you consider the use of resources, some finite, others not, a threat to our survival? Land will still be here, so will flora and fauna. Even if catastrophic events happen and much of the population dies off, I have serious doubts the entire race will die off. If earth’s population today were reduced to 1000, do you seriously believe that 1000 wouldn’t or couldn’t propagate again? Further, the granting or rescinding of freedoms based on the alleged good of the collective is a road to a disaster much worse than running out of oil.
“can’t have infinite growth in a finite system…..” and then later you said,”……..The problem with invention is that it can’t beat the laws of thermodynamics.”(Please correct me if I got the gist of your statements wrong.)
The problem I’m having with the view you’re presenting is that the system your referring to is only partially correct. Your missing the other half of the equation. Specifically indicated in your last statement. I don’t believe we are finished in finding out more laws of nature and physics. Will we find a work around of the laws of thermodynamics? Or will we find an undiscovered law in the future. I believe so. The other half of the equation is, of course, mankind. Mankind has shown an infinite capacity for invention, innovation, learning, discovery and exploration. You seemed to have closed the story on man’s ability to adapt and overcome his environment. While the earth may in some cases have a finite amount of resources, man’s ability to utilize them is infinite.
GM, I’ve enjoyed this discussion. While I’m more than willing to continue, I’m afraid it would be rather circular from this point. Please come back. I’m interested in some of the other thoughts you may have in the various discussion we have here.
Thanks,
James Sexton
GM says:
“Really, I heard that this place was ranked first among the science blogs on the internet some time ago…”
You heard correctly. This site allows contrary points of view — unlike the heavily censoring ReaClimate, climate progress, tamino, etc. They are all True Believer blogs that do not tolerate different points of view. [And note that the Wikio Award for Best Science site was presented only about 2 months ago.]
GM says:
“I use the word denier because this is the word I have been using for years, I was hardly aware that it is inflammatory here. Certainly, there is no shortage of people using the word ‘alarmist’ in the comments.”
Time for some education: “Denier” is used in order to equate scientific skeptics [the only honest kind of scientists] with Holocaust deniers — just as you try to equate skeptics with “creationists” and “anti-vaxxers.” “Denier” is a deliberately pejorative word, and the site policy does not allow it. Since you say you didn’t know, it appears that you got a pass. Now that you know, please use an acceptable term from now on.
As for alarmist, here’s the history: “Global warming” quickly became “catastrophic runaway global warming due to human CO2 emissions” [CO2=CAGW]. Alarming, no?
But it is simply a conjecture; CAGW has never been sighted, either currently or in the geological record. Therefore CAGW is a classic argumentum ad ignorantium — an argument from ignorance; a logical fallacy. Even so, the ignorant use alarmist arguments constantly, because if they told the truth there would be nothing to be alarmed about. Therefore, they engage in alarmist arguments in order to scare the public for financial gain and political power. And if they can achieve totalitarianism along the way, so much the better.
Here is another example of an argumentum ad ignorantium:
“Freedom is nice. But if in the long term it results in a disaster, it has to be limited… I am not for totalitarianism for totalitarianism sake…”
Show us where economic and personal liberty have ever caused a worldwide disaster. Rather, it is your precious totalitarianism that has repeatedly caused disasters that killed many tens of millions of people.
Yet another argumentum ad ignorantium:
“History is a very poor guide in this case. Malthusian predictions have been wrong in the past, but only regarding timing.”
Fact: Malthus was wrong, and timing has nothing to do with it. So were the Luddites, whose modern incarnation are the believers in the fantasy that one molecule out of every 2,600 molecules will cause runaway global warming. If a committee of academics convened to formulate the most ridiculous conjecture possible, that one would surely be in the top five. Extrapolating a slight warming predicted by radiative physics into a planetary catastrophe is silliness doubled and squared.
There is a reason that the alarmist contingent refuses to disclose its data and methodologies: their CO2 conjecture would be promptly falsified if they did. [The scientific charlatan Michael Mann still refuses to disclose his data and methods twelve years after his wildly inaccurate MBH98 hokey stick chart, which was thoroughly debunked by McIntyre, McKittrick, Wegman and others.
In short, you sound like a tenured academic who has drunk the alarmist Kool Aid being passed around the Ivory Tower. As a cure I recommend spending a few months getting up to speed by reading the WUWT archives. You will soon notice that all of your concerns in this thread have been discussed repeatedly here, and resolved by the only honest climate peer review system still in existence.
Here’s the USGS site on the Bakken formation. Check out the Natural Gas estimate.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2008/3021/
Steve, could you change the color from white (which is cold) to green (which is more neutral)? That seems to be the issue. They have cut the center out of the spectrum and replaced it with a hot color (yellow). If they had put green in as “normal” (i.e. 0 deviation) that would be more visually accurate, leaving a less-hot looking map.
Kerry is part of the problem and not part of the solution.
France has already proven safe reliable nuclear is the solution to affordable clean energy. Unions and monopolies in the USA have “killed the golden goose” known as the rail, water transportation and automotive industries. The combination of unions and monopolies leads to inefficiency, stagnation and lack of innovation. The USA would have had a much better rail system if unions and monopolies had not driven the cost through the roof:
Kerry voted NO on approving a nuclear waste repository. (Apr 1997)
He voted YES on restricting employer interference in union organizing. (Jun 2007)
Rated 100% by the AFL-CIO, indicating a pro-union voting record. (Dec 2003)
Voted NO on restoring $550M in funding for Amtrak for 2007. (Mar 2006)
NO on protecting middle-income taxpayers from a national energy tax:
From: http://www.ontheissues.org/john_kerry.htm#Energy_+_Oil
Competition at Work:Railroads vs. Monopoly in the U.S. Shipping Industry:
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.141.6922&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Timeline results for railroad – unions – monopoly:
http://www.google.com/search?q=railroad+unions+monopoly+history&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=uOj&sa=G&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&tbs=tl:1&tbo=u&ei=jLFZTIVhify9A8iD_YIO&oi=timeline_result&ct=title&resnum=11&ved=0CEsQ5wIwCg
GM wrote:
“Malthusian predictions have been wrong in the past, but only regarding timing. In the long term they are axiomatically correct – can’t have infinite growth in a finite system.”
There is nothing axiomatic about this at all. Malthus based his observations on geometric population growth vs. arithmetic food growth. Although it is axiomatic that you can’t have geometric population growth indefinately, your reply was about infinite economic growth, so I will deal with that.
Economic growth is often interpreted by the laymen in simplistic terms, meaning an ever increasing amount of stuff being consumed. With that mindset, it’s no wonder that many well meaning people say you can’t have infinite growth. Over the past hundred years, individual wealth has increased enormously, but the correlation between quantities of stuff that individuals consume, and economic wealth is beginning to breakdown. Instead of consuming ever vaster quantities of raw materials on a per capita basis, many high value items contain relatively little mass of raw materials, with the myriads of cellphones, iPads, and personal computers. And each of these devices has spawned a huge market it something containing even less mass – software. Software, as Bill Gates will tell you, is a multi billion dollar industry, and growing rapidly. All this software is a real consumable product, providing real utility to the world and contributing massively to global wealth and GDP. So here we have a growth sector which consumes almost nothing of the earths resources, and contributes massively towards economic productivity.
But as society becomes wealthier, individuals consume an even greater intangible – leisure. This is all made possible by growth in economic productivity, that provides more free time, allowing people to consume movies, meals out, health clubs, hotels, beauty therapy, lifestyle coaching.
And what happens to all that raw material that is mined and used in making “stuff”? With the exception of energy itself, it remains on the planet, ready to be recycled and reused. If these products become scarce, the price signals will cause a growth in the recycling sectors, which at the moment are only in their infancy.
So I reject your assertion that you can’t have infinite economic growth. Malthusians are wrong because they don’t understand growth and merely attempt to project the present into the future. But I bet in a hundred years time, we will still be having the same arguments.
If they want energy independence, why are they punishing coal the most?
Because the coal companies can be *made* to buy carbon credits via REDD+, from Amazonia and Indonesia.
Apparently you have no idea what is contained in those devices…
Currently the energy use of computers is approaching 10% of the total. So yes, they information technologies use absolutely no resources…
And those things don’t use any resources either….
Yes, it doesn’t leave the earth. But its entropy is much higher once it ends up in the oceans. You can look at landfills as mines, and they are in a sense, but hardly everything ends up in landfills.
So I reject your assertion that you can’t have infinite economic growth. Malthusians are wrong because they don’t understand growth and merely attempt to project the present into the future. But I bet in a hundred years time, we will still be having the same arguments.
That’s a rejection based on basic ignorance of the laws of thermodynamics and of the main components of the resource base of modern society
By the way folks, the science on abiotic oil IS settled unlike the global warming nonsense:
KTH Royal Institute of Technology
September 7, 2009
Researchers at KTH have been able to prove that the fossils of animals and plants are not necessary to generate raw oil and natural gas. This result is extremely radical as it means that it will be much easier to find these energy sources and that they may be located all over the world…
Together with two research colleagues, Professor Kutcherov has simulated the process of pressure and heat that occurs naturally in the inner strata of the earth’s crust. This process generates hydrocarbons, the primary elements of oil and natural gas…
http://alethonewsa.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/easier-to-find-oil-2/
For those of you that live in fear of scarcity, take a hard look at this recent article:
The Orinoco Belt has a strong and, indeed, enviable competitive position
VHeadline | August 1, 2010
Former Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) Finance Coordinator Oliver L Campbell writes…
http://alethonews.wordpress.com/2010/08/04/the-orinoco-belt-has-a-strong-and-indeed-enviable-competitive-position/
Bear in mind, oil is fungible and exporters are more dependent on export income than importers are on any group of producers.
I just went to Google Scholar and searched for oil formation and I got back hundreds of article, old and new, in direct contradiction with oil abiogenesis. Yes, the science is settled. And it has settled at exactly the opposite conclusion to yours. To claim that the scientific consensus is the opposite to what it is breaks the anti-science-meter
Sand for the most part. Is their a shortage of sand?
All Congress has to do to make us energy independent (ie: not reliant for foreigners for our crude oil) is to reinstate the Oil Depletion Allowance. The ODA is what made Amercia the energy powerhouse within the world, and its repeal sent wildcatters overseas looking for oil and made us forever dependent on foreign sources of crude oil. Does Congress have the guts to reinstate the ODA? The answer is a resounding “NO!” And keeping ANWAR, off shore drilling, and drilling on Federal lands off the table doesn’t help either. Look no further than Congress for this mess we’re in.
In addition, we own 80% of the entire world’s supply of recoverable shale oil. So, what’s the problem?
You indeed have no idea
[SNIP. You know better.]
GM
Your “Google Scholar Science” is out of date.
Labs have now produced petroleum from common calcium carbonate under pressures found in the upper mantle.
Unlike the fossil fuel theory, this is not theoretical. It is repeatable empirical evidence. Yes, consensus science has often been proven WRONG.
Rhys Jaggar says: August 4, 2010 at 3:04 am
Err……………presumably the rest of the world to whom America exports this that and the other might reasonably ask about how their dependence on American products makes America richer????
………Don’t mean to be rude, but America’s as hard as nails when it comes to making money from foreigners. So why they complain when others do in oil what they do in all kinds of things just beats me
……….The unique nature of the immigrants who populated America in the past 300 years, perhaps????
Rhys : Talk about muddled thinking!
1. America is no different to any other nation that exports – people buy and people sell – it called business.
2. Ditto for 1 above.
3. What’s unique about the immigrants who populated America in the past 300 years? And what has that got to do with the argument?
Thoughts: All 11 of them
Rhys : I bet you haven’t thought through the logistics of any of the so called solutions you offer. You pontification is typical of a w—-ing greenee who has never actually done anything.
Doug
Anyone who believes, against all the contrary evidence, that Thomas Malthus’ dictum that we are ‘condemned by the tendency of population to grow geometrically while food production would increase only arithmetically’ was correct, after more than 200 years being wrong, is borderline loco.
The Earth’s population was about 800 million when Malthus published his thesis. The planet’s population now is about 6,700 million, and the average person today is much better fed and clothed, and has a much longer life expectancy. Even the very poorest still have better nutrition than the average person living in 1800.
Malthus’ belief had nothing to do with the ‘laws of thermodynamics.’ He was an economist. [In reality, Malthus argued that human ingenuity — ie: freedom (remember, that was the period of the Enlightenment) — was the reason that the planet could support many more people.]
But as GM makes the argument, Malthus was right in believing that there is a reckoning right around the corner. Maybe there is. But if so, it is entirely the fault of government, not the fault of the people, as the past 200 years has amply demonstrated: the more economic and political freedom a country has, the more prosperous its people are — and the cleaner its environment is.
Counterintel ops:
Algore don’t give up easily, letter today from Al:
Dear ____,
The Senate has decided that we won’t get a comprehensive climate and clean energy bill before the August recess — which most observers interpret as a death-knell for the legislation this year.
This failure would be hard to understand at any time, to say the least. But coming as it does in the middle of a record-hot summer and a series of environmental disasters, Washington’s abandonment of this effort is all the more confounding and frustrating.
However, this setback only makes our work more necessary. As long as we care about our country, our planet, and the future we’re leaving for our children and grandchildren, we must continue to fight.
Remember: The climate crisis isn’t going away. And neither can we. It is getting worse, so we have to redouble our efforts.
We’re already planning the next phase of our work, and I’m counting on your continued involvement. I’d like to invite you to join me next Tuesday, August 10, for a conversation to discuss how we should move forward from here. I’ll be answering some questions from Repower America members like you — so please submit a question for discussion.
“Next Steps for the Climate Movement”
Virtual Town Hall
Tuesday, August 10 at 8:30 p.m. EDT
RSVP to join and submit your question
The Senate’s decision is a major disappointment for the climate movement, but there is a silver lining. In the last year, supporters like you have organized on an unprecedented scale. And we’ve built overwhelming popular support for action on comprehensive climate and clean energy solutions.
But by using the right-wing media echo chamber, record campaign contributions and an army of well-paid lobbyists, the oil and coal industries have stopped at nothing to protect the status quo and their profits. They want to keep using the atmosphere as an open sewer for the dumping of their greenhouse gas pollution.
The Senate’s inaction reflects that reality. We have always known that solving the climate crisis is a generational challenge — and the urgency of the climate crisis demands that despite these substantial obstacles, we must fight for every inch of progress. The science has never been more clear and the evidence is mounting day by day.
For those of us who understand the stakes, it’s a moral obligation.
And so we must fight even harder. Together, we must continue to beat back repeated assaults on the authority in the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon pollution. We must continue to pressure our elected leaders — local, state and national — to stand with the American people instead of the fossil fuel industry. We must each take individual action to transition to clean energy in our daily lives. And we must win the ongoing battle of science against spin.
We can and must continue the fight. Please join me on Tuesday, August 10 at 8:30 p.m. EDT to discuss our next steps.
http://acp.repoweramerica.org/jointhecall
Thanks for all you do — we’re all in this together.
Al Gore
You are the one with no idea – of what I know, or of what you are speaking in this case.