Upset that he didn’t get his way on the White House Solar Panel fiasco, Bill McKibben makes a threat. Unfortunately, the Los Angeles Times is an accessory by giving McKibben a platform from which to launch it.
From his guest editorial here:
Actually, I’ll be surprised if the White House doesn’t put up solar panels within a year. But even if they do, that would just be the barest of beginnings. Which is why, with other environmental leaders, we recently issued a call for ideas about a campaign of civil disobedience next spring — at power plants and coal mines but at White Houses too, if they don’t turn at least a little green.
So tell me Bill, what then after that if that doesn’t work?
On the plus side, it will probably be another farce like the power plant rally NASA GISS’ Dr. Jim Hansen last attended. There, Bills buds made a delusional claim to have “shut down” the Washington DC power plant.
Actually the truth is, they were “shut out”. They never got past the gate, and the power plant ignored them and went humming along much like the Eaarth does.
You can read the story behind the hilarious photo above here.
RockyRoad says:
September 17, 2010 at 7:49 am
“These people are eco-terrorists. The power plants and coal mines they plan on attacking should be armed and guarded with sufficient force that interruption of their operations isn’t a possibility. Get law enforcement out to protect these critical assets, then have internal security forces as a backup. Train the operators and miners in the proper use of self defense and asset protection, if necessary.”
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Back in the mid 1970’s I was living in Maryland. I was developing materials to train nuclear power plant operators. A neighbor was the head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission department that assessed security at nuclear power plants.
The Eco-Nazis were using the technique of serial law suits to delay the completion of nuclear power plants for years. The electric utility would then go bankrupt because they were paying all of the construction expenses for years after they estimated that they would be up and earning revenue.
The latest ploy of the Eco-Nazis was to sue over the security plans because terrorists might get into the plant and do something (undefined) bad. (It was at the same time the pathetic fool Jimmy Carter was bungling the Iranian Hostage Crisis.)
Since the future of life on earth was at stake should the terrorists have their way with a nuclear power plant, I was curious as to what the procedure was. If it were so important to keep terrorists out, I assumed that any unauthorized person caught inside the fence would automatically be shot on sight.
Makes sense to me, anyway.
My friend was horrified at the suggestion! Au contraire, the security personnel were told to place themselves between the terrorists and sensitive areas and defend themselves should they be attacked.
Folks, there is sheer lunacy inside the beltway. I suspect that there are mind altering drugs in the drinking water. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Regards,
Steamboat Jack (Jon Jewett’s evil twin)
PS Hey guys, the last paragraph of the above is a joke! Get it? A Joke! Part of it anyway. The problem with dealing with Eco-Nazis and Warmists is that sarcasm and irony seamlessly blend into their reality. Like Alice, they have taken the “one Pill (that) makes you larger AND (the) one Pill (that) makes you small”. They are ten feet tall and chasing a rabbit because the hooka smoking caterpillar told them where to go. Too bad they’ve lost their heads.
http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/white-rabbit/2216d0f873402bd430282216d0f873402bd43028-165662950921?q=one%20pill%20makes%20you%20larger&FROM=LKVR5>1=LKVR5&FORM=LKVR
Steve from Rockwood says:
September 17, 2010 at 3:39 pm
@ur momisugly M White & John from CA.
The Bakken is oil in shale
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Thanks Steve,
I noticed that the shale fields are very concentrated in the Colorado area as well but the technology to extract the oil without strip mining is 10-20 years away.
I also noticed that 107 million barrels have been produced from the Bakken so I’m guessing it isn’t all shale.
Fred
” Nice jackets too – most appear to be made from petroleum products”.
A neat way of emphasing the role mining plays in society is to ask one of the doubters to play a game – to undress and take off any any item of clothing and adornment that relies on the mining and petroleum industries for its existence.
The logical end is that your victim has to stand butt-naked in front of the audience, (if there is one), for everything they wear, be it underwear, spectacles, tooth filling, cataract replacements, etc etc etc etc, relies on mining in the first place, and has thus to be removed.
A colleague uses this method of explanation when confronted with obstinate politicians who think mining needs to be banned or curtailed. They see the lilght very quickly every time.
If anyone should read my comment above of “McKibben’s children moving to China” and take that as personal, it wasn’t meant that way, it was to his “dedicated followers”, that kind of figurative “children”. Sorry Mr. McKibben, I meant nothing so personal and I’ll try to watch the way I use such words in the future.
John from ca
It is all shale but some of those puddles are pretty big.
Try the size of the oil sands in canada. We would have to excavate every lake and city to get those trillion barrels.
If there is money to be made they are there. If there is not, then a conspiracy theory isn’t far behind.
@Wayne
Did not really get your post but didn’t think you were addressing specific children.
I think you were suggesting that china needs to do the work to reduce pollution and cut back on co2 but can you expand?
John from ca
How can you strip mine something that is 1,000 feet below surface?
I’ve always regarded McKibben as a rather tragic figure. More like a football half-time arranger of starry-eyed pubescent acolytes into large “350” displays, followed by lavish self-congratulatory appeals to Joe Romm for praise – only luke-warmly delivered. Bill just isn’t in the running for the big time nod from Soros and the Progressive kremlin.
Steve from Rockwood says:
September 17, 2010 at 3:52 pm
@ur momisugly M White & Tim Williams.
The estimates at 500 billion barrels seem to be right. The only problem is the fact that we are talking about shale-oil.
What evidence do you have for this 500bill figure? Please provide a link.
I have not seen this figure from any reliable source. All estimates I’ve seen cite the USGS 3.6 Bill barrels, any many consider this too large.
A good read about Bakken can be had here…http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3868
There are probably more appropriate forums to call that guy a nutter so I won’t do it here, but he does remind me of this misbegotten bit of governmental malpractice:
The Canadian Hydrogen Highway!
http://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/BC-Canada-hydrogen-highway.htm
Say, how’s aboot them Kanukians there, eh?
http://www.greencar.com/articles/hydrogen-highway-leads-2010-winter-olympics-vancouver.php
Now before everyone tries to tear me a new one, half my family are Kanukians, eh. We have good chuckles aboot which side of the border is losing ground faster against big stoopid government, eh. And yeah, they really say eh, hey. Them Quebeckers, not so much. Those fellers have the golden highway.
@ur momisugly Tim Williams
Try this link.
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/ftproot/features/ngshock.pdf
I think we are on the same page here Tim. I don’t believe the Bakken is a world class oil field although it is producing oil in both the U.S. and Canada. The number 500 billion probably refers to the total contained oil in the shale formation. What they seem to be extracting are pockets of pooled oil from a middle member formation (a more porous formation located within the shale) and within the shale directly by fracture technology and horizontal drilling.
My point about the 500 billion number is, sure maybe there is that much oil, but what is the cost to extract. Right now they are taking the easy stuff.
Apologies to the mods, but that guy looks as creepy as his politics.
UnfrozenCavemanMD says:
September 17, 2010 at 8:09 am
It saddens me to see my high school classmate, Bill McKibben, someone who is an essentially decent, intelligent, educated and well-meaning person, become not only a true-believer, but a leader in the climate alarmism movement. There is a certain kind of person whose desire to do good in the world, to look beyond himself at the larger picture, and to belong to something larger than his own life, is so strong that once it finds satisfaction in working for a cause, all objectivity is lost. Intelligence, beneficence and ability is no protection from this vice, rather they are the levers by which some of our best and brightests have been turned to all manner of destructive political movements or cults.
Good comment. Smart enough to make trouble, not smart enough to stay out of trouble.
Steve from rockwood says:
September 17, 2010 at 7:49 pm
John from ca
How can you strip mine something that is 1,000 feet below surface?
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Good question
From what I read when M White posted above, they either need to bring the shale to the surface and heat it to extract the oil which leaves a mountain of waste to deal with or drill and heat an underground area to do the same without the waste. Shell is supposedly working on this but its 10-20 years away before it produces any volume.
@ur momisugly John from CA.
Strip mining is surface mining or open pit mining. It is fairly cheap although environmentalists are increasingly against it, probably because it visually doesn’t look great. At 1,000 ft under a mountain, the Bakken oil shale would have to be mined using underground methods (very unlikely), or fractured in sections (I know more about mining than oil recovery). The fact that oil companies are there working on the problem is a positive sign. But the low relative production suggests the cost/reward ratio is not there even at $75/barrel.
Check out the Canadian oil sands projects. This is considered to be the largest oil reservoir in the world based on extractable oil (but not at todays prices). There are 1-2 trillion barrels of oil there. Only 10% was thought to be extractable but this is based on current world prices. Estimates of 5 million barrels a day are given if oil prices continue to rise.
This is why I have a problem with peak oil. Much of it is based on economic limits and not production or reserve limits. Economics can change. We will run out of oil eventually, but not for a long time.
This man really must hate life and the eearths inhabitants. Just look at his possesed expression; would this man ever have any fun in life? No! And that is why he cannot stand other people actually liking their lives and enjoy prosperity. In earlier days he would have found refuge in a monastery and he would be harmless to the world, now he has to spoil everbody elses fun with apocalyptic prophesies. How can he and others be so convinced of things you most probably impossibly can know and for which todate there is no convincing evidence whatsoever? If only we could restrict beliefs and convictions to the religious domain, common sense would flourish everywhere else like never before.
Herein lies the proof that Thoreau was a terrorist:
> All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable.
Source: http://thoreau.eserver.org/civil1.html
I thought solar panels were a net zero return on energy investment? Is that true or not? If not, it’s got to be darn close to just breaking even.
David L.
You need to look at some back issues of WUWT. Only in very limited cases can solar break even. I started on solar projects over 20 years ago, and there just isn’t a payback on investment.
Anthony Watts is absolutely right for raising the very important question “what then after that if that doesn’t work?” History teaches us that the original Boston Tea Party was an illegal act of civil disobedience which led to war! Clearly the current Tea Party movement are modelling themselves on terrorists. WHERE WILL THEY STOP? Frankly, they should be incarcerated before they cause any trouble. Along with the hippies. But maybe in seperate prisons.
REPLY: I don’t share your view that “they should be incarcerated before they cause any trouble”. That view is just as wrong as can possibly be. Thought police and all that. If crimes are committed, then the law in enforceable, not before. – Anthony
Misleading – the activists did not want to get inside the facility, they were blocking the entrance gates so that coal could not be delivered and they were successful in blocking the gates for the entire day. More than anything it was meant to be symbolic – the youth are not willing to let our capitol building or our country to be run on fossil fues any longer
A correction would be appreciated, but I won’t hold my breath – you thrive on belittling and mocking those who would like to exercise the precautionary principle on an issue of epic proportions. (if you do correct please include the entire quote)
REPLY: Explain why then they have a sign that says “Closed for Climate Justice!” I’ll be happy to issue a retraction if they issue a press release that says the photo (their own from their website) gives a misleading impression that our group “closed” the power plant when in fact we did not. – Anthony
Ah, yes. Bill “Crazy Eyes” McKibben.
Ignore.
protester
The precautionary principle has a use only for people like you who want to impose yourselves on mankind.
AWG advocates of the “principle” never take account of the cost of doing whatever it is they want to do – only what they say is the cost of not doing it. As one small example, what do you reckon would be the cost of shutting down every coal fired power station and banning gasoline use for transport?
protester
The precautionary principle is an out-and-out con trick.