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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (72403)	7/6/2006 9:30:06 PM
From: altair19	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 361539

Wharfy <4 out of 3 people have trouble with fractions.> and the last one thought you were talking about fractals. Altair19

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (72403)	7/6/2006 9:33:34 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 361539

Talkin' to mice elf again An Open Letter to Greg Palast by Richard Heinberg Dear Greg, Congratulations on your new book, Armed Madhouse. As with your previous work, I admire your dedication in exposing the machinations of government and corporate miscreants. However, this time around you’ve also taken a potshot at a target that I happen to know a good deal about and have been closely involved with for a few years—the efforts by a growing number of analysts to forecast the arrival, and prepare the world for the consequences, of Peak Oil. In this instance I think your negative comments about Peak Oil and those of us who study it are not well informed. Ordinarily I wouldn’t respond to an ill-considered statement by an otherwise admirable author; but unfortunately you go on for several pages on this theme, and I’ve started receiving e-mails from folks who are troubled by what you said. In my many years of fighting to protect our planet from environmental destruction, I have learned how important it is to make sure that our supporters have the most accurate information possible. Time and again, I have seen our opponents seize on internal disagreements as wedges in their drive to weaken and damage the credibility of the environmental movement. I feel the responsibility to help sort out the factual issues in this instance particularly strongly because you have worked so hard to earn your reputation as a truth-teller in these perilous times. First let me make clear where I’m coming from with my critical analysis. Before you assume that, just because I disagree with you, I must therefore be secretly in the employ of the Heritage Foundation or some nefarious corporation, I should point out that in my own recent book, Powerdown, I take the Bush administration to task as vehemently (if not at so great a length) as you have done. And I teach in a program on “Culture, Ecology and Sustainable Community” at a small, far-left liberal arts college where you have lectured. So we are in other respects natural allies. In your book, you place your critique of Peak Oil in the context of scathing attacks on the Bush energy plan and the oil companies’ enormous ongoing political influence. These are serious problems and you deal with them skillfully and entertainingly. But, in contrast to these subjects, the Peak Oil discussion is more about science than politics, and when it comes to science, catchy phrases don’t count; only a careful weighing of evidence does. I’m sorry to say that you don’t appear to be fully informed about the terms and history of this debate. Let’s start with your description of the work of the late geologist M. King Hubbert and the study of oil depletion. On page 108 you pretend to summarize Hubbert’s 1956 world forecast for global oil production as follows: Sometime during 2006, we will have used up every last drop of crude oil on the planet. We’re not talking “decline” in oil from a production “peak,” we’re talking “culmination,” completely gone, kaput, dead out of crude—and not enough natural gas left to roast a weenie. But “Decline” and “peak” are precisely what Hubbert was forecasting—and not in 2006, but around the year 2000, as shown in the graph you reproduce on page 111. How could you possibly get the essential terms of the debate so plainly wrong? Frankly, I’m amazed. Maybe you got hung up on the word culmination (which, among other things, means “the highest point achieved by a celestial object in the night sky before it begins its descent”—a good metaphorical usage of the term in this instance). But even so, how could you have completely missed the context in which Hubbert used that word—a discussion that was entirely about “decline” and “peak”? Message 22602269

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (72403)	7/6/2006 9:39:02 PM
From: James Calladine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 361539

"You know, I've seen a lot of people walkin' 'round With tombstones in their eyes" oldielyrics.com Such people only account for .75 of a person, which explains WHY some people have trouble with fractions, because they insist on using standard measurements, like number of eyes divided by two, etc whereas: YA GOTTA TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE PERSONHOOD OF THE PERSON Adding up the ENTIRE Bush Cabinet thusly would only account for 4.39873 persons! The Big Dick only contributed .00248 to the total! Do you think Raw Story would be interested? Namaste! Jim