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Politics : The Environmentalist Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Wharf Rat who wrote (9444)2/9/2007 7:13:02 AM
From: Wharf Rat  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 36917
 
"being proven "right" about an issue that threatens an impoverished and dangerous future for both our children our ecosystems alike is hardly reason for jubilation."
That works for me; I have a vested interest in being wrong. It's too bad we're not.

After the Climate Breakthrough: What Do We Do Now?
Alan AtKisson
February 7, 2007 5:39 AM

Many people in our line of work* are feeling a bit giddy these days. Some, myself included, are talking in terms of a "sea change," "tipping point," "the wave is breaking" and the like. There is a kind of electricity in the air, a sense that many things previously considered impossibly difficult and infeasible are now just around the political-and-economic corner. As one friend put it, "For years I have felt like Sisyphus, pushing the boulder up the hill only to have it roll down again. For the first time, the boulder seems not only to be staying on top, but even to be rolling down the other side."

And the reason for all this optimism? Climate change has hit the big time.

The fact that climate change is now a central focus of the world's attention, from Hollywood to Davos, and that even US President George W. Bush was forced to acknowledge it in his 2007 State of the Union Address, changes the climate for sustainability work in general. The recent release of the new IPCC report only solidified a growing feeling that "now is finally the time." More and more decision-makers -- whether they decide households or national economies -- are now actively looking for the solutions that many of us have been promoting for years.

But a number of my professional friends are not celebrating this sudden emergence of climate change onto the world stage and even the big screen. Instead, they express a wide range of emotions, from puzzlement about what to do next (now that major world leaders and institutions have gotten in the game, some of the early thought-leaders will effectively be pushed to the margins), to a kind of sadness that has always been there under the surface but which, in the press of the fight, rarely could be expressed. The latter is all too easy to explain: being proven "right" about an issue that threatens an impoverished and dangerous future for both our children our ecosystems alike is hardly reason for jubilation.

As one prominent colleague working on renewable energy noted to me privately, "People actually ask me if I'm happy now that climate change is finally getting all this attention. Of course I'm not happy; I'm grieving! I just want to weep! I want to tell them, 'Why didn't you listen to us ten years ago?'"

In November I gave a speech on climate change to Japanese business leaders in which I described a kind of "triple punch" that had changed the political and media playing field for good: Hurricane Katrina, Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth," and the "Stern Review of the Economics of Climate Change."

Since then, I've noticed that several other folks in this line of work were all independently saying exactly the same thing. On Swedish television the other night, a news report on climate actually cut between experts in mid-sentence, to illustrate that they were practically uttering the same words about the same three milestones. Here is my version of those words:

First, Hurricane Katrina woke the world up to the fact the dangers of global warming are real. The flooding of New Orleans showed us what those dangers look like in visceral terms. Regardless of whether global warming can be specifically implicated -- and it never can be in the case of any specific event, even one like Katrina, which involved a small-ish hurricane growing to monster size over weirdly warm waters, and then destroying much of a major US city -- it is clear that things like Katrina are what we can expect to happen more and more, especially if nothing is done. Katrina helped make climate change "an undeniable fact."

Then came "An Inconvenient Truth," Al's Gore's astonishingly successful documentary film, which made the science of climate change accessible to nearly everyone. Gore assembled all the graphs and the history and the scientific explanations into a convenient package that could be absorbed in one sitting. Some criticized the film's animated sequences of a forlorn, homeless polar bear swimming in search of vanishing sea ice (and probably drowning) as alarmist; but it turns out that even this was just a representation of verifiable scientific facts, and the US government is moving polar bears toward the endangered species list for precisely this reason.

Finally, when the former Chief Economist of the World Bank, Sir Nicholas Stern, made a report to the government of the United Kingdom on the economics of climate change -- noting dramatically that failure to act now would likely result in a major global depression -- the last major chink in the wall of denial crumbled. Sir Nicholas was, by all reports, one of the most popular attractions at the World Economic Forum in Davos this year. His speech there made Page 1, above the fold, of the International Herald Tribune.

These three events were enough to push climate change, which was gaining political momentum for hundreds of other smaller reasons, over some kind of hump. Since then two more events have added to this feeling of a downhill race to action: the release of a statement by the previously secret "National Climate Action Partnership," a group of corporate CEOs who are publicly calling for a cap-and-trade system for carbon dioxide in the United States; and the release in Paris of the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report, which should "remove the question mark" (as UNEP's director Achim Steiner put it) on whether global warming is happening, and whether humans are causing it.

So ... now what?

"We are Winning," wrote science-fiction-author-turned-green-design-guru Bruce Sterling in a recent post to his "Viridian" list-serve. Sterling created the "Viridian Movement" (viridian means "a cool shade of green") eight years ago. His goal was to recruit people, and especially designers of all kinds, to get serious about addressing the climate threat. He had planned for his movement to "expire" by 2012, partly because if serious change in product design, energy policy, and the like wasn't happening to address global warming by then, it wouldn't matter anyway: the world would be doomed.

But now Sterling is seriously considering ending his Movement early. "We Viridians have beaten that clock," he wrote in January. "There is no need to wait for distant 2012 to declare victory in our war to make green trendy and to create 'irresistible demand for a global atmosphere upgrade.' Green will never get any trendier than it is this year. The atmosphere upgrade is on the way. That process won't be pretty, but it's going to happen."

After cataloguing the many ways in which "We are Winning," Sterling notes that in this situation, "There are two choices. You can attempt to seize control, or you can get out of the way." With climate change engagement now essentially "everywhere" (even though it is not technically everywhere yet), and becoming the new normal, promoting the issue is no longer the place to be avant garde. His advice to activists under his second scenario ("get out of the way") is to take private pleasure in the victory and "vanish into the woodwork."

That's probably good advice for the prophets and Paul Reveres of this movement: they deserve a nap after years of sleepless nights, hollering for people to wake up.

As for Sterling's first scenario, "seizing control" is neither an option nor desirable -- even if he is just talking about seizing control of the agenda, with his usual dramatic flair. The climate change agenda is now exactly where many of us were trying to put it: into the machinery of political and economic decision-making. Those of who play in that arena can perhaps have some influence; but we certainly cannot control the agenda. Nobody can. Our planet's fate will now be determined by the sloppy process we call democracy, as national parliaments and boards of directors and international assemblies and city councils step up their deliberations about what to do. Now that climate change has secured a privileged position on the agenda of human affairs, nobody will ever have full control.

That's a very good thing, of course. One can at least hope, and these days even assume, that the deliberations of decision-makers will increasingly be informed by the latest research on what is actually happening. But the game of "what do we do now?" is a game of selection and prioritization among a wide range of options. Framing and making such decisions is the role of leadership, and even in the least democratic contexts, leaders do not have full control. Nature has firmly established that when it comes to defining the agenda, she has the last word.

That leaves another, tougher option as the only way forward for most of us who have dedicated careers to the vision of a more sustainable world: rolling up our sleeves, and working on scaling up implementation. Leadership and deliberative decision-making are best served by accurate analyses, clear proposals, good examples, case studies. We have many of these at the ready. Our collective storehouse of tried-and-tested ideas, prototypes and working models will be enormously useful in the next few years. But the world is likely to burn through these with astonishing rapidity, and ask for more, better, and faster. The most important thing that professionals in sustainability will have to offer in the future is not ready-made solutions, but an ability to improvise, adapt, innovate, and dream up still more visionary-yet-feasible ideas about how to transform a global civilization or rescue ecosystems in trouble. This is going to require even more exertion, more creativity, more risk; celebrating victory and going home is not an option.

Of course, while he seems to celebrating victory, prophet Sterling (who, with tongue resolutely in cheek, calls himself the "Pope-Emperor of the Viridian Movement") appears to be actually doing the opposite; and he certainly isn't "going home." Instead, he has put himself on the firing line where his wild creativity can serve a wildly acute need: this previously comfortable Texan is now living in Belgrade, and seeking to make a contribution to a better future for Serbia. If that's not a commitment to sustainable development, I don't know what is.

Here's the summary: In the next few years, people who have been working on sustainability, especially where it touches the climate-and-energy nexus, are going to be seriously tested -- not by resistance to their ideas, but by the ever-increasing demand for them.

* The phrase "our line of work" refers to people working in a professional capacity on the issues of sustainable development, or in training to do such work.
worldchanging.com



To: Wharf Rat who wrote (9444)2/9/2007 9:31:21 AM
From: average joe  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 36917
 
THE PEAK OIL MYTH.........

By Dr. Stanley Monteith
November 11, 2005
NewsWithViews.com

The price of oil and natural gas was increasing before Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, destroyed almost a fourth of our oil production, raised the price of gasoline to over $3.00 a gallon, and the price of oil to $70.00 a barrel. Will the rising cost of oil devastate our economy?

The web site, hubbertpeak.com warns:

"Oil will become more expensive and less available. This will be painful in the industrialized countries which have become totally dependent upon oil, and in the less developed countries where oil use is extremely sensitive to price escalation."[1]

Dr. M. King Hubbert worked at the Shell Oil research laboratory in Houston, analyzed the oil reserves of the major oil companies, and issued a 1956 report that predicted U.S. oil production would peak between 1965 and 1970. Production peaked in 1971, and has declined since then.[2] U.S. natural gas production peaked the same year. How did Dr. Hubbert know what was going to happen? Was he clairvoyant? Was he lucky? Did he have access to "secret information”?

Dr. Kenneth Deffeyes worked at the Shell Oil research laboratory in Houston, taught at the University of Minnesota and Oregon State University, joined the staff at Princeton in 1967, and worked there until he retired. Dr. Deffeyes' book, Beyond Oil: The View From Hubbert's Peak, he predicted world oil production will peak between 2004 and 2008. During a recent interview, Dr. Deffeyes predicted world production would peak in late 2005 or early 2006.[3] If Dr. Deffeyes is correct, what will happen to our economy? What will happen to the world economy?

en.wikipedia.org states:

"Oil depletion is the inescapable result of extracting and consuming oil faster than it can be replaced. Because the oil resource is not infinite, and its current replacement rate is quite slow relative to use, it will at some point be depleted."[4]

Is oil a finite resource? Will oil production peak in late 2005 or 2006? Many geologists, media pundits, oil company executives, and the people they employ claim the world is running out of oil. Web site www.hubbertpeak.com states:

"As humanity comes to terms with the inevitability of a world beyond oil, the remaining oil supply will be exploited in three ways:

1. To maintain the global economy;
2. To create a new solar economy which will not depend upon oil;
3. To fight over the oil that remains."[5]

Most of the electricity that produces our products and heats our homes is generated by burning coal (which pollutes the environment) and natural gas, but Lee Raymond, CEO of Exxon Mobil, claims the U.S. is running out of natural gas. Reuters News Service reports:

"After weak prices in the 1990s due to oversupply, natural gas production in North America will probably continue to decline unless there is another big discovery, Exxon Mobil Corp.'s chief executive said on Tuesday.

'Gas production has peaked in North America,' Chief Executive Lee Raymond told reporters at the Reuters Energy Summit.

Asked whether production would continue to decline even if two huge arctic gas pipeline projects were built, Raymond said, 'I think that's a fair statement, unless there's some huge find that nobody has any idea where it would be.'"[6]

healthandenergy.com confirms Mr. Raymond’s statement:

"Natural gas supply in North America is in decline, and no early simple solution is anticipated. These are the conclusions expressed in a study, 'North American Natural Gas: Data Show Supply Problems' just published in the journal Natural Resources Research. . . . Natural gas production in the United States peaked in 1971. Since then, Canada has increasing(ly) supplied the United States to 15 percent of its needs in 2002. However, in 2002, Canadian gas production declined. That trend continued in 2003. Currently 80% of all wells are drilled for gas, not oil, but in spite of this increased effort the production decline has not been reversed. The amount of gas found per foot drilled has also declined nearly 50 percent in the past decade indicating that the easy-to-find large fields have already been discovered. New gas wells are showing decline rates as high as 80 percent the first year."[7]

What will happen when our natural gas is exhausted? Can we generate energy from the wind and the sun? Wind and solar energy are prohibitively expensive, and take years to develop. Are there other alternatives? Can we maintain our standard of living by burning oil? The world produces 80 million barrels of oil a day. The United States has 5% of the world's population and consumes 20.52 million barrels of oil a day. Europe has 7% of the world's population and consumes 16.45 million barrels of oil a day. China has 22-23% of the world's population and consumes 5 million barrels of oil a day, but China, India, and the other developing nations need more oil.[8]

If oil peaks in late 2005 or 2006, how will the U.S., Europe, China, and the other developing nations deal with their growing need for oil? Will OPEC increase the oil price to $100 a barrel? To $200 a barrel? What will happen to our economy? What will happen to the world economy?

China is acquiring oil fields in Saudi Arabia and Africa, purchasing oil in South America, Canada, Russia, and the Middle East, and developing the oil sand deposits in Alberta, Canada. The Los Angeles Times reports:

"Three of China's state-owned oil companies have . . . poured huge investments into the oil sands, including a 40% stake in a $3.6-billion project that will be able to send oil via a new pipeline to Canada's west coast for shipment to China and elsewhere. . . . Scenes like this are being repeated around the world. . . . Chinese crews are building roads in Africa in exchange for the right to extract oil from remote regions. Viewers in Saudi Arabia, a nation that U.S. oil firms once had to themselves now watch Chinese programs on satellite TV as China drills into Saudi sands. China is also taking advantage of tensions between the Bush administration and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to wrest oil from one of the largest U.S. suppliers. To secure deals worth tens of billions of dollars, Beijing is cozying up to regimes in nations, including Iran. . . . And it is flexing its military muscle to lay claim to contested fields in East Asia."[9]

Is the world really running out of oil and natural gas, or is the oil industry running the same scam they ran in 1973 when TV stations broadcast advertisements that depicted dinosaurs lumbering through a forest as a somber voice proclaimed:

"There are no more dinosaurs . . . the world is running out of oil."

The advertisement suggested oil comes from decayed dinosaurs and organic matter, but that isn't true. Honest geologists admit they don't know where oil comes from, but Professor Thomas Gold, an astrophysicist at Cornell University, theorized that oil comes from methane and contains heat-loving bacteria that inhabit the heated biosphere beneath the surface of the earth. en.wikipedia/org/wiki/Thomas_Gold explains Thomas Gold's theory:

"Thomas Gold achieved fame for his 1992 paper, 'The Deep Hot Biosphere' in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which presented a controversial view of the origin of coal, oil, and gas deposits, a theory of an abiogenic petroleum origin. The theory suggests coal and crude oil deposits have their origin in natural gas flows which feed bacteria living at extreme depths under the surface of the Earth; in other words, oil and coal are produced through tectonic forces, rather than from the decomposition of fossils. . . . Recent discoveries have shown that bacteria live at depths far greater than previously believed. Whilst this does not prove Gold's theory, it certainly lends support to its arguments."[10]

If Thomas Gold's theory is correct, oil is constantly replenished, and there is a perpetual supply of oil and natural gas. Has anyone accessed the subterranean regions of the earth to evaluate Professor Gold's idea? The Russians have. That's why Russia is the second largest oil producer in the world today.

freeenergynews.com reports:

"Russians started drilling Kola SG-3, an exploration well which finally reached a staggering world record depth of 40,230 feet. Since then, Russian oil majors including Yukos have quietly drilled more than 310 successful super-deep oil wells, and put them into production. Last year Russia overtook Saudi Arabia as the world's biggest single oil producer, and is now set to completely dominate global oil production and sales for the next century."[11]

If that is true, why haven't we heard about the discovery? Because the oil companies, the media moguls, and the Occult Hierarchy that controls them don't want the public to know the energy shortage is contrived. Saudi Arabia, which funds international terrorism, and the major oil companies have made billions of dollars since they raised the price of oil. They will make trillions of dollars, destroy our economy, and enslave our people if we don't expose the deception. [12]

Dr. M. King Hubbert predicted U.S. oil production would peak between 1965 and 1970. It peaked in 1971. How did Dr. Hubbert know that would happen? I suspect he knew the oil cartel was going to finance the environmental movement, get laws enacted that would restrict oil and natural gas production, and block further development of nuclear power in the United States. Gary Benoit's article in the March 27, 2000, issue of The New American notes:

"In a letter published in the February 12th (2000-ed) New York Times, Senator Frank Murkowski (R-AK), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, identified 'the main problem,' not as a lack of domestic resources, but as 'the administration's efforts to send oil development out of this country through taxes, environmental decisions and bad policy.' After noting that more than half our oil comes from foreign countries and that our wells are being shut down (by government decree-ed) Murkowski candidly stated: 'We've allowed that to happen, and we look a little foolish complaining of the consequences.'"[13]

The article continued: "The United States is awash in energy resources and our dangerous dependence on foreign sources could be ended simply by allowing the development of those resources in a free enterprise environment. . . . Not only has the United States not depleted its proved reserves of oil, but those reserves actually increased over a period of decades, the result of both new discoveries and changing economic and technological conditions.

According to statistics supplied by the Energy Information Administration (EIA), America's proved oil reserves grew from 24.6 billion barrels in 1949 to 38.1 billion barrels in 1971 before declining to 21.0 billion barrels in 1998. Natural gas proved reserves have followed a similar pattern, although they peaked earlier and are somewhat larger than our oil reserves. . . . EIA-supplied statistics show that the U.S. had 152 billion barrels of 'technically recoverable oil' (including proved reserves) in 1998, enough to last another 77 years at the current rate of production. As for natural gas, there is enough to last 71 years at the current production level."[14]

The oil and natural gas reserves cited in the EIA report are only a fraction of the reserves that have been discovered. Lindsey Williams was the chaplain for the construction crews that built the trans-Alaska pipe line, and was at Prudhoe Bay when Atlantic Richfield tapped into one of the largest oil fields in the world, but the field wasn't developed. I researched that story, and found a BP executive who confirmed the information. Radio Liberty carries Lindsey Williams' book, The Energy Non-Crisis.[15]

I will cover more of this incredible story in my next article “Peak Oil II.”

Dr. Stanley Monteith has been studying the movement to create a world government for almost 40 years. During his 35-year career as an orthopedic surgeon he traveled to Europe, lived in South Africa, and researched the records of the men and the organizations that are working to bring our nation under the control of a corporate elite.

Dr. Monteith currently spends five hours daily on talk radio across the nation. He writes extensively, and lectures on geopolitics. He is the author of AIDS: The Unnecessary Epidemic and his most recent book Brotherhood of Darkness is in its 8th printing.

newswithviews.com