Because Jesus is coming again soon to rapture them away so they don't care what they do to the earth, besides god gave them dominion over the Earth to rape and pillage it as they please. They don't believe in anthropological global warming anyhow since they don't believe in science, though some of them believe in peak oil which is why they think we need to drill "our own oil" by international companies selling it on the international market... Also he put the oil in the earth already made along with fossils, and accelerated light so that a galaxy 12 billion light years away can be seen now even though the universe is only 6,500 years old, and all that other prof that he had nothing to do with the creation of the universe. It is that whole god chose the foolish things to confound the wise... and he hid things from the wise and learned and revealed them to children... and all the other excuses they have for explaining such things.

>> ^peggedbea:

i'm super fascinated with how evolution denying teabaggers justify their raging boner for fossil fuels.

Solar cells have reached 40% effectiveness, which is far more than any conventional energy source. The tech has come leaps and bounds from what you refer to. Nuclear isn't the answer either as peak uranium is about as close away as peak oil. The fact is, free photos rain down with a total solar energy hitting Earth at around 10^17 Watts, and that is just on the earths surface. Tapping into just a portion of that is worth it. Extra planetary collectors would fetch nearly double of their earth bound brethren. Solar makes to much since to ignore. In other videos, he talks about the cost, and it was about as costly as a second of equivalently maintained asphalt, and that doesn't even factor in the energy they provide as an offset.

The ball has to start rolling. As others pointed out, replacing all sidewalks with something like this would be a great start. Smart sidewalks have whole other neat set of applications! Hey Mr. Smart phone, why don't you sync up with the side walk and point me in the direction of that bar I am going to...I shall follow the sidewalk arrows until I arrive!

If you are talking about technological costs, the always goes down fast with time. Problem is there are about 20 different sets of competing technologies that are still viaing for dominance. We are only about 10 years away from paper printing, high yield cells. With a modular system like the one proposed, outdated units could be phased out for newer ones very easily. In the end, it takes a doer to get this done, it is easy to be a naysayer and poke holes in the boat. I mean, the internet, surely that would never work. Hurdles can usually be overcome, doing nothing can't be.

What I don't get about the fervent resistance against restricting greenhouse gas emissions is: We're going to run out of fossil fuels in about 60 years. You can massage the numbers one way or the other, but from what I can tell, 60 years seems like a reasonable estimate. We're going to be getting into trouble much before that, thanks to "peak oil". That means revamping, on a global scale, our entire energy infrastructure in a few decades. The solutions to both of these problems are the same: We need to develop non-fossil energy sources, fast. Even if somehow you manage to convince yourself that anthropogenic climate change is a sham, it is insane to ignore the limited nature of the fossil fuel reservers. This is not a small problem - 70-80% of our energy comes from fossil fuels, and we're ignoring that to bicker about whether or not CO2, methane etc. have an effect on the climate, and whether a warmer world would be such a bad thing at all.

My palm, it is glued to my face.

Waste is an enormous problem, as is water supply. and those two don't intermingle well.
Consider that we are at peak oil now (in all likelihood) or we are past that...unless someone can come up with an adequate energy replacement in the next few hundred years, resource-wise, we are at or near peak capacity.
Not to mention the destructive forces on the ecosystem that come about when one species completely dominates the planet. Humans cannot dominate the planet without changing the ecosystem around them, likely for the very worst. In ecosystem terms, the stasis...or equilibrium of the ecosystem is already upset by the present dominance of one species. Pushing this imbalance much further seems like a really really dumb idea.
and farmland must be fallow at times in order to produce.

How so? "Peak Oil" simply refers to the point where we reach our maximum extraction rate. How can that not happen?
>> ^choggie:
Update: Peak Oil is total BULLSHIT!!!

Update: Peak Oil is total BULLSHIT!!!

Global warming is one thing, but the Carbon Credits is a fucking scam.

Penn & Teller couldn't say that global warming was bullshit, they might like to, but they couldn't. However they did call the Carbon Credit scams bullshit. Honestly, I have a hard time accepting the science that is pushing people to pay to clear their consciences while not actually doing anything to help.

All of these carbon sanctions are excellent right? Until the third world countries cannot industrialize and are forced by UN mandate to stay third world. What is the carbon footprint left by manufacturing several thousand solar panels; as it turns out very low. But does it pay for itself? Not if you consume shit-loads of energy.

I don't know if anything came of the whole COP15 Kyoto Protocol ammendment, but that is besides the point. I am explicitly opposed to any sort of rubbish such as this Al Gore founded carbon forgiveness bullshit. Science is one thing, warming has happened, I would argue on par with peak oil; but making a profit off of the stupidity of gullible people is fucking dastardly. It gives skeptics and nay-sayers more reason to froth at the mouth.

http://www.cchange.net/2009/12/09/hell-breaks-loose-at-cop15-ambitious-legal-treaty-now/

But hey, what does Stanhope say about it? There's only one way to save the world, condoms and sodomy.



Carbon Credit Scams Articles:
http://newsbusters.org/node/12314

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oct/04/police-hunt-carbon-trading-fraudsters

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/05/business/05online.html

<sigh>
Let the flame wars begin
</sigh>

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Richard Heinberg, postcarbon, peak oil' to 'Richard Heinberg, postcarbon, peak oil, fossil fuels, depletion' - edited by calvados

This is no fraud pseudo-science crap. Peak oil is the real deal folks. The 21st century is going to get even crazier, albeit very quickly too.

>> ^bcglorf:


bcglorf, you have taken time to give my points the same answer that you did in the first place, which is your belief that better batteries are the answer to all the problems related to the coming shortages in oil. I absolutely think that better batteries will help, but I do not believe that they will be the unilateral solution to every facet of those problems.

The differences I have suggested between the engines in small duty personal vehicles and large scale engines are real. You are correct that the principle in all combustion engines is the same but the issue with powering larger engines is the scale of the energy required to move them.

I live in (arguably) one of the most important military ports on the western coast of the North Atlantic. I have seen the engine rooms of several destroyers and other warships and am familiar with with how big these engines really are. No matter how good the batteries get, they still require a power source. A nuclear powered ship is not the same as a battery powered ship. The only things that can move the battleships and aircraft carriers I've seen are diesel fuel and nuclear reactors. And putting a nuclear reactor in every ship more then 100 feet long just isn't practical.

I am also familiar with Tesla motors and think that they're doing great things. But even with their successes there remains the problem of scale. The increase of energy required to move lager and larger masses in not a constant.

I am not going to have time to give you a more fully developed argument right now. I can see by how quickly you responded to my last comment that you probably haven't looked at the references I posted for the the quotes I cited. Check them out. Some may be old news for you, but I expect you'll find them interesting anyway. I'll be back later to find out what you think.

<>> ^bcglorf:
...

The social attachment to oil is much deeper the powering the transportation to get to the grocery store or the beach. It is in every piece of food you get at the grocery store or bring to the beach. It is in the road you drive on, the oil that lubricates the engine as well as just the gas tank.

The agricultural attachment to oil is not just that it is used in the production and delivery of the fertilizer that grows the food to feed the citizen or just the fuel in the gas tank of the grain harvester and other farm machinery.

The political attachment to oil is not just ensuring that a population have access to the cheap energy for their car, but the cheap fuel for the cheap power plant the provides the cheap electricity for to run the fridge for the cheap food brought from all corners of the earth.

The monetary attachment to oil is not just to the Oil Barons and Corporations who make billions mining and selling it to citizens and governments.

The military attachment is not just to fuel the transportation of tanks, battleships and aircraft carriers, as well as fighter-jets and bombers. It is not just the means of production of weapons which are then transported to the front lines where they are employed in freeing up more oil for the Country, for the Government, for the Citizen, for the Oil Baron, and for the Military which turns round and does it again.

The attachment to oil is all of those things. Interwoven and inseparable.

There is no quick fix or replacement for oil. There must be a reduction of our energy consumption. There will be massive social and political changes required for us to get through the coming crisis of the long emergency. If we are smart we will get those changes moving sooner rather then later. Some of them are already beginning. And that gives me some hope.

In the mean time, let me know when you've found a battery that can power an ocean liner.

>> ^bcglorf:

Thank you for your reply.

You made it clear that I may have made an error in my previous comment. I think I should clarify that what I meant by "personal transport" was light vehicles for personal uses, as is the minivan or motorcycle used to get to work, the store, not transportation in general, which I view as a different, though not unrelated, problem. Moving freight, airplanes and battleships requires different solutions (in my opinion) then the problem of getting your kids to the hockey game.

I think we agree that the transition from oil is an important issue. You seem to believe that better batteries (and electric engines) will solve every facet of every issue facing the end of oil, and that this will result in little or no social or political change or turmoil. While I deeply wish that the next century comes to be shaped after your expectations, I do not believe it will be so. I do not believe that batteries alone will solve the coming crisis. Even if energy storage technology was to rapidly become what we would need it to be, where would the energy come from if the source for more then half of our current use was to vanish? Replacing that energy by renewable means will require a huge amount of investment and several decades to implement.

What I see coming, is a myriad of interwoven problems of which the central spine is energy use. All of them are have energy use at the at the root of their problem. This is because oil has done more then just let people drive their cars around cheaply. Cities are no longer shaped after people's needs, but to suit the demands of the automobile. There has been a great deal of optimism in investing in electric cars to allow people to continue to access modern cities as they have been constructed.

"When people say that they want to go to the electric car, I love it! But remember, they say 'car' not 'truck.' A battery won't move an 18 wheeler. The only thing that will move an 18 wheeler is foreign oil, diesel and gasoline, and our domestic natural gas." -T. Boone Pickens (on The Daily Show)

However continuing to access these cities will get more difficult when costs of energy begin to come down from the bubble of cheapness that I and most of the people I know have grown up in.

"Consequently these (cities) will be places that nobody wants to be in. These will be places that are not worth caring about. We have about 38,000 places that are not worth caring about in the united states today, when we have enough of them we will have a nation that is not worth defending. -James Howard Kunstler on "The greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world."

Even if cities are reshaped for the new economy of energy, there is debate on what that will be. Some people believe that there will be a magic-pill cure, like super batteries that will allow life to continue as normal. This will not be the case.

"The central delusion that we're seeing right now is the idea that we can magically come up with a rescue remedy to continue running the interstate highway system and all the other accessories and furnishings of the happy motoring system. I happen to think that we're going to be very disappointed about that. In fact there are a lot of intelligent thigns we can do, but one of the least intelligent things we can expect is that we can continue happy motoring. You can demonstrate that you can run cars on hydrogen, cow shit and fried potato oil, but can run 230 million cars and trucks on it? Forget about it.

And then you get into political questions, like if driving becomes something only for the elite. Right now 4% of americans can't drive for one reason or another. What happens when that number becomes 13% or 27% of the people do you think that's going to be politically okay? It would create huge resentments and grievances against the people who can still do it." - James Howard Kunstler

But when I said that personal transportation is not the biggest issue, I meant it. People will be less concerned with their car or the "happy motoring system" if they are hungry.

"Food prices are rising and they're about to soar. There have been a lot of rising grain prices that have not been passed on to the consumer, they're about to be. High food prices always create political peril, as we've known since the French revolution at least.

The era of cheap food is over in this country, just as the era of cheap oil is over as well. (...) The old fix, ramping up production is not going to work this time, because cheap food depends on cheap energy, something we can no longer count on. Without reforming the American food system, it will be impossible to make progress on the issues of energy independence, climate change and the health care crisis because the way we feed ourselves is that the heart of all those three problems.

Let me explain. The food system, uses more fossil fuel and contributes more greenhouse gas to the atmosphere then any other industry. Between 17 and 34 percent. Meat production alone is 18 percent." -Michael Pollan, on The End of Cheap Food.

So when faced with the choice between fuel for their cars and fuel for their bodies, some will choose to fuel the car, leaving others to go hungry. And when people are hungry, they turn to first to the government for solutions. Governments know that they will need to bring resources to appease a population and avoid that political peril they have known about since the French Revolution. Remember that wars are always about resources.

"How curious, that the First World War is never taught in our schools as an invasion of Iraq. (...A reaction to) the Berlin-Bagdad railway, which commenced construction in the years leading up to the first world war," with the goal of bringing oil from Iraq to Germany. (-Robert Newman, A History of Oil)

"Oil is what drives the military machine of every country. It provides the fuel for aircraft, the ships the tanks for the trucks. The control of oil is indespensible. When you run out if your army stops." -Chalmers Johnson, Why we fight.

Oil is more then just a transportation issue. Riding the bus won't help much. The bus runs on gasoline, just like your car.

Convincing people to purchase new alternate fuel automobiles (or horses) would take a lot of time. As it stands most alternatives are still quite expensive, while household income is on a steep decline. But personal transport is not the biggest issue. It gets more complicated then that.

The investment in infrastructure related to oil goes beyond just pipelines from oil fields to refineries to automobiles. Think of where your bananas will come from? How do they get to you now? How many miles do the cheap products on Walmart shelfs travel once they leave the sweat shop? Most of the products we use and eat every day depend on that oil-powered infrastructure. Even the highways those products go by to reach you, once they are taken off ship, are made from oil. How will these roads be maintained and repaved when the main component has become scarce?

The end of oil means a lot more then just having to look closer at that electric car. It means a massive social and political changes which will take a generation to even begin to implement.



>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^notarobot:
^ Except that consumption rates will keep growing, even after the peak.

Unless some impossible breakthrough like, say, electric cars becoming economical happens. Then consumption will drop near zero. If arable land for horses was projected from usage 100 years ago we'd have had a 'crisis' of insufficient grass for horses.

>> ^notarobot:
^ Except that consumption rates will keep growing, even after the peak.


Unless some impossible breakthrough like, say, electric cars becoming economical happens. Then consumption will drop near zero. If arable land for horses was projected from usage 100 years ago we'd have had a 'crisis' of insufficient grass for horses.

Yeah "peak oil" means there's like fifty more years of oil at current rates of consumption, right?