Climate Change

[Krogensailor]

Originally Posted by RaymondR
"I think what Krogensailor is saying here is that America would be better to return to mores of it's Puritan forbears. That is people of simple but adequate lifestyles without the waste occasioned by excessive grandiosity (large gas guzzlers driven for show rather than utility etc)".

"America would be better to return to mores of it's Puritan forbears"
Absolutely not. They were crazy people. No one could get along with them, that's why they got run out of England. Between the Puritans and the Calvinist we can isolate much of the source of repression and regressive thinking in American culture.
The last part is closer to what I'm saying, Shame those who need, '(large gas guzzlers driven for show rather than utility etc)" I wouldn't refer to it as ,"simple but adequate", I think we could have most all of what we want by using technology to the max. If we made things as good as they can be made, instead of planning in obsolescence if the effort to perpetuate predatory economies. Grandiosity and glutony would have to shift, but we only practice such nonsense in the attempt to make life seem worthwhile. We have devolved into addicts and shysters. In the business world. If you scratch the surface of most corps in western culture you will find borderline and over the border criminal behavior. We will sell anything to anyone. Being the best is no longer the benchmark. Getting it right, takes a back seat to being right. Soon to be dead right. No we don't need to go back, we need to go forward. And that takes courage and fortitude. Old character trait's for sure, but those are the stuff that got us here. Now we need to come up with new stuff. Einstein said, “We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them”, What coal did 150+ years ago, and what oil did a hundred years ago is what has to happen today. In 1850 whaling was the number one global commercial enterprise. In 1854 it was on it's way out of business. Why? Abraham Gesner. In 1854 invented kerosine. In 1973 oil came to the end of it's time. Corruption has kept it in place since. Tech and alternetive energy is the next lubricant. I mean, everything you see, everything you are, all of this earth come's from one source, stars. Our star. How can that not be the source of our continued existence? We are disoriented. Confused. Caught up in a soap opera called politics and religion. Economies based on scarcity designed to fail. The sun does not rise and set. We are turning forever east. We can't ,'believe or connive' our way to solution. It's going to take work. Let go of some of our desires, our opinions, fears. Seek some common ground. I know I go on, but this is the effort/contribution that I have to contribute/offer. Turn off the light in the flickering box across the room from you. Turn on the light within, the binnacle of your compass and set a course. As I , and many of you grow older, we only have so many summers left. Do you want to spend them just being right. Or would you like to spend them making a difference. I've made my choice.

[RaymondR]

I think you have to compare them to the alternatives in their own time. Whilst they did go of on the odd witch burning spree occasionally there was nothing like the auto de fer of the inquisition and whilst they might be considered a little conservative by today's licentious standards the other mob only took Galileo's works of the prescribed list a few years ago. Be mindful that the penalty in the England of the time was to be part hung, choked, drawn, your intestines ripped out, and quartered, pulled apart by four horse teams. It is not so long ago that a well known actress went into the heartland of one of the US's enemies, was photographed on an anti aircraft weapon and returned home with no ill outcomes. Times have changed and whilst Puritan mores may appear a little right wing by today's standards they were on the liberal side of the Enlightenment movement.

We cannot go back to those times and short of about 11 billion of us emulating lemmings there is no short term solution. Practically all the systems we use to create the necessities of life depend on fairly intense and consistent energy use and whilst the so called renewables might, with a great deal of inconvenience and expense, assist in a very small way they will just not do the job. We already have technologies which would in a short period of time significantly de-carbonize our energy use without any effect on the availability or reliability of our power generation systems they have been demonized to the extent that they have become politically impractical.

There are billions of people who's standards of living need to be enhanced and we are not going to be able to deny them. There are hundreds of millions who enjoy high living standards and who are not going to give them up no matter the crescendo of propaganda from the new age environmentalists (who will probably also scream blue murder when the cannot have a hot shower)

What we really need are leaders who do not shrink from telling the public the truth, (about 10,000 Winston Churchills would do the job nicely) rather than pandering to a noisy minority of fairies-at-the-bottom-of-the-garden ratbag activist.

Incidentally, we are not at the end of the hydrocarbon age because many of our critical modern materials are based upon it, we are stuck with it for a long time yet. However, just as the coal age began with a shortage of increasingly expensive firewood hydrocarbons will phase out as an energy source. The replacement will probably be nuclear generated electric systems.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

Well there we go again. I thought that Puritanism was an unintended result of Martin Luther vandalizing a cathedral door with graffiti and a rebellion against both the spiritual corruption of the established church of the time and the material corruption of secular authorities as well.

My understanding was that some of these folks fled to Massachusetts and founded a colony there and some hung about and hooked up with Oliver Cromwell and started a monarchy head lopping movement.

Makes you wonder if the later rebellion against monarchical authority, the American rebellion - or as folk there like to describe it, revolution - would have occurred if the English branch of the club had retained power instead of the return of the Stuarts and all that secular corruption.

Just shows you how confused you can become listening to school teachers.

Puritans left for the new world for many reasons , one of which was the notion of " religious freedom " in England they were and became a very forthright movement. This caused frictions between the Church of England and the Puritan movement. That led to attempts to silence them. However I don't believe it could be quite regarded as " religious persecution" in the manner of continental style persecutions.

Yes it makes you wonder what if the puritans had held unto power in England.

Mind you to get a different perspective of persecution ,read Cromwells bloody history in Ireland. ( where to this day he his reviled). ( and by the way , where the expression , " by hook or by crook" comes from) , now there was a serious " religious persecution" by Puritans against the local Catholic population , that's the trouble with Zealots.

Myself I prefer nice , malleable , fuzzy politicians and religious leaders. They tend to get us into less trouble , while they line their pockets. , Those convinced of their own righteousness , tend to ultimately just benefit the undertaker industry.

Dave

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

I think you have to compare them to the alternatives in their own time. Whilst they did go of on the odd witch burning spree occasionally there was nothing like the auto de fer of the inquisition and whilst they might be considered a little conservative by today's licentious standards the other mob only took Galileo's works of the prescribed list a few years ago. Be mindful that the penalty in the England of the time was to be part hung, choked, drawn, your intestines ripped out, and quartered, pulled apart by four horse teams. It is not so long ago that a well known actress went into the heartland of one of the US's enemies, was photographed on an anti aircraft weapon and returned home with no ill outcomes. Times have changed and whilst Puritan mores may appear a little right wing by today's standards they were on the liberal side of the Enlightenment movement.

We cannot go back to those times and short of about 11 billion of us emulating lemmings there is no short term solution. Practically all the systems we use to create the necessities of life depend on fairly intense and consistent energy use and whilst the so called renewables might, with a great deal of inconvenience and expense, assist in a very small way they will just not do the job. We already have technologies which would in a short period of time significantly de-carbonize our energy use without any effect on the availability or reliability of our power generation systems they have been demonized to the extent that they have become politically impractical.

There are billions of people who's standards of living need to be enhanced and we are not going to be able to deny them. There are hundreds of millions who enjoy high living standards and who are not going to give them up no matter the crescendo of propaganda from the new age environmentalists (who will probably also scream blue murder when the cannot have a hot shower)

What we really need are leaders who do not shrink from telling the public the truth, (about 10,000 Winston Churchills would do the job nicely) rather than pandering to a noisy minority of fairies-at-the-bottom-of-the-garden ratbag activist.

Incidentally, we are not at the end of the hydrocarbon age because many of our critical modern materials are based upon it, we are stuck with it for a long time yet. However, just as the coal age began with a shortage of increasingly expensive firewood hydrocarbons will phase out as an energy source. The replacement will probably be nuclear generated electric systems.

I think your confused ,English puritans , were essentially suppressed by the Church of England , not continental Europe. The reformation had already occurred in England before Plymouth. Some always seem to connect " religious persecution" with continental Europe issues , ie the Roman church and the reformists. But this was not the case with the english Puritans. In their case it was more a suppression of personal religious freedoms, rather then active persecution. Remember the head of the Church of England was the King , criticising the church, was criticising the king, that stuff could be hard on the neck !

Of course the developed world can save energy and reduce co2 emissions , we have the technology and the money. All we lack is willpower.

The developing world as yet, is not a major co2 emitter , the three are china , US and china. Lets just deal with those problem areas for now.

The coal age occurred primarily because the UK, the cradle of the industrial revolution had lots of coal, and the new steel , transport and other industries needed its caloric value. It had nothing to do with firewood.

Yes we can, decarbonise our energy usage , that's the first step , then we need to transition away from hydrocarbons .

And no we don't need Winston Churchills , war mongers have no place in politics, thank you. The UK realised that very rapidly after ww2 and booted him out.

Dave

[K_V_B]

Originally Posted by LakeSuperior

I have to disagree with you there. It comes out to roughly 2 orders of magnitude, a 100 times more energy, than is currently being produced if the planet goes to 10 billion in 50 years.

That is 100 times more CO2 per year than we are now producing.

Lake-Effect, you better start working on developing some "unobtainium" if you want to dent this problem.

Where do you get those figures from?

You need about 2000W for a Western standard of living. Times 10 billion, times one year means 20 trillion TWy. That's not such a big increase over now.

[LakeSuperior]

Originally Posted by K_V_B

Where do you get those figures from?

You need about 2000W for a Western standard of living. Times 10 billion, times one year means 20 trillion TWy. That's not such a big increase over now.

The assumption was that most of the world is living on one order of magnitude less energy than the Western standard of living.

[Sailor_Hutch]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Its feasible... Could be that is all down to us treating our 'Council House' like sh*t coz sooner or later the 'Landlord' will come along and put things right.....but with the latest scientific claim that the Sun is about to flip its magnetic poles...

Or the NASA release saying that for first time on record, the sun's deep core currents have literally stopped!

My problem with "for the first time ever, in recorded history" statements is that they never include how long is the recorded history. Recorded history, In terms of the sun's deep current velocity, is a few decades. How could anyone extrapolate that to what really happens over hundreds or thousands of years? It's fun to prognosticate though ...

[LakeSuperior]

Originally Posted by Sailor_Hutch

Or the NASA release saying that for first time on record, the sun's deep core currents have literally stopped!

How could anyone extrapolate that to what really happens over hundreds or thousands of years? It's fun to prognosticate though ...

The fun stops when you are forced by the Kool-Aid drinkers to adopt a lifestyle that was popular 200 years ago based on some computer model estimates.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by LakeSuperior

The fun stops when you are forced by the Kool-Aid drinkers to adopt a lifestyle that was popular 200 years ago based on some computer model estimates.

Are you referring to people who have actually taken the time to read and understand the massive amount of peer-reviewed, credible research, from multiple disciplines, now produced over decades? Are these the Kook-Aid drinkers you are referring to Bill? I guess you prefer people to cover their eyes, stick their fingers in their ears, sing really loud, and ignore the mounting evidence.

Look, I get it. If we're doomed anyway, then what the heck! Status-quo is just fine (for us). Buy that huge house, drive that large SUV. Eat, drink and be merry. The party goes on ... until it stops.

[unbusted67]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Are you referring to people who have actually taken the time to read and understand the massive amount of peer-reviewed, credible research, from multiple disciplines, now produced over decades? Are these the Kook-Aid drinkers you are referring to Bill? I guess you prefer people to cover their eyes, stick their fingers in their ears, sing really loud, and ignore the mounting evidence.

Look, I get it. If we're doomed anyway, then what the heck! Status-quo is just fine (for us). Buy that huge house, drive that large SUV. Eat, drink and be merry. The party goes on ... until it stops.

This whole conversation reminds me of one I had in a fishing store in San Diego. When I asked the tattood tooth-missing store clerk what he thought of what happened on the Grand Banks and how that might affect fishing quotas in SoCal? He replied, and I quote, "Man I ain't going to let no stupid, hippie F$%ot, scientiest tell me that he knows more about fish then me."

Hey everybody, scientists know more than you, way more. That's why they have masters degrees and doctorates in their fields: the very fields we are talking about

And I love it when people say, "profit driven scientists". Haha. All those filthy rich scientist driving around in their Porsches and living in their McMansions....oh wait those are Oil company executives and bankers. Sorry I got the two confused. WTF? It's weird how that phrase "profit driven scientist" is one that originates in only two places but echoes throughout the country. It originates on Fox News and Rush Limbaugh.

The eco system is delicate. The Ozone layer is only .6 parts per million compared to the rest of the atmosphere. It wouldn't take much, say unleashing all of the earth's carbon in a steady stream of exhaust from our cars over the course of a hundred years, to change things in a major way. So why is it so hard for people to wrap their heads around the fact that this isn't normal and that we might have caused some major problems with our actions? Actions that we could change to improve our situation?

[LakeSuperior]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Are you referring to people who have actually taken the time to read and understand the massive amount of peer-reviewed, credible research, from multiple disciplines, now produced over decades? Are these the Kook-Aid drinkers you are referring to Bill? I guess you prefer people to cover their eyes, stick their fingers in their ears, sing really loud, and ignore the mounting evidence.

Look, I get it. If we're doomed anyway, then what the heck! Status-quo is just fine (for us). Buy that huge house, drive that large SUV. Eat, drink and be merry. The party goes on ... until it stops.

Mike that is the reality. How much are you personally willing to give up? Are you willing to stop doing the things that make life worth living? Would you do your share even if no one else is making the sacrifice?

No more boat hulls and decks. No more diesel fuel or engines. How much energy to mine the iron ore, smelt it, heat it back up to pour a block, machine it, transport it to your boat hull. Are you willing to sail Lake Superior without an engine? The rule as you know is summer cruising is motoring half the time.

No car, no hot showers, no showers, rotten food, no heat in the house. How far are you willing to go. How much reduction per person is required to actually fix the problem. Again it is like the Subaru driver bitching that the SUV driver is using up all the hydrocarbons.

My point here is that you and all of us may be unwilling to reduce our carbon footprint to the levels that are required to fix the problem.

[ReMetau]

Originally Posted by LakeSuperior

Mike that is the reality. How much are you personally willing to give up? Are you willing to stop doing the things that make life worth living? Would you do your share even if no one else is making the sacrifice?

No more boat hulls and decks. No more diesel fuel or engines. How much energy to mine the iron ore, smelt it, heat it back up to pour a block, machine it, transport it to your boat hull. Are you willing to sail Lake Superior without an engine? The rule as you know is summer cruising is motoring half the time.

No car, no hot showers, no showers, rotten food, no heat in the house. How far are you willing to go. How much reduction per person is required to actually fix the problem. Again it is like the Subaru driver bitching that the SUV driver is using up all the hydrocarbons.

My point here is that you and all of us may be unwilling to reduce our carbon footprint to the levels that are required to fix the problem.

At least reducing now and finding other means is better than just sitting around bitching about it and waiting for somebody else to find a solution.

[unbusted67]

Originally Posted by LakeSuperior

Mike that is the reality. How much are you personally willing to give up? Are you willing to stop doing the things that make life worth living? Would you do your share even if no one else is making the sacrifice?

No more boat hulls and decks. No more diesel fuel or engines. How much energy to mine the iron ore, smelt it, heat it back up to pour a block, machine it, transport it to your boat hull. Are you willing to sail Lake Superior without an engine? The rule as you know is summer cruising is motoring half the time.

No car, no hot showers, no showers, rotten food, no heat in the house. How far are you willing to go. How much reduction per person is required to actually fix the problem. Again it is like the Subaru driver bitching that the SUV driver is using up all the hydrocarbons.

My point here is that you and all of us may be unwilling to reduce our carbon footprint to the levels that are required to fix the problem.

For the record I would be willing to do all of these things if it meant not scorching all of God's creatures off the face of the planet. That is slightly more important to me than a hot shower. So that makes one of us.

[AbaftAndBaffled]

Originally Posted by LakeSuperior

Mike that is the reality. How much are you personally willing to give up? Are you willing to stop doing the things that make life worth living? Would you do your share even if no one else is making the sacrifice?

No more boat hulls and decks. No more diesel fuel or engines. How much energy to mine the iron ore, smelt it, heat it back up to pour a block, machine it, transport it to your boat hull. Are you willing to sail Lake Superior without an engine? The rule as you know is summer cruising is motoring half the time.

No car, no hot showers, no showers, rotten food, no heat in the house. How far are you willing to go. How much reduction per person is required to actually fix the problem. Again it is like the Subaru driver bitching that the SUV driver is using up all the hydrocarbons.

My point here is that you and all of us may be unwilling to reduce our carbon footprint to the levels that are required to fix the problem.

I don't know where the all-or-nothing attitude comes from whenever these discussions arise. Look at a place like Cuba. They're actually ahead of the curb because the embargo sort of simulated a loss of natural resources. They don't junk their stuff, they fix it.

Problem with that is once people stop buying, large chunks of the population lose their manufacturing jobs.

[LakeSuperior]

Originally Posted by ReMetau

At least reducing now and finding other means is better than just sitting around bitching about it and waiting for somebody else to find a solution.

Tell me what steps you will be taking to significantly and materially reduce your carbon footprint over the remainder of your life.

Tell me what steps you will be taking to find a solution to the looming apocalypse.

I am seriously interested in what you are proposing to do.