Darn that Global Warming

[SDR]

Here's an idea: save the ANWR oil deposits as a reserve, to keep America going after the Mideast Oil Wars have destroyed those supplies (or the means to access them). Enact punitive taxation on petrolem fuel use, for every application for which viable renewable-source energy options exist, so that remaining petroleum supplies can be used, at a slower rate than at present, for those needs which only petroleum can meet: plastics? airline fuel? _______?

The tougher the question, the more necessary it is to have disinterested, unbiased and neutral parties negotiate a solution. Crunch-time is approaching, for a number of international peace, security and supply questions (ie, ocean policy). War is a truly stupid -- and impermanent -- "solution" to ANY problem. Unless we no longer care what the future of our civilization and our planet will be, we have to do better than that.

SDR

[Kevin]

Well said.

[Donald]

Heres another idea...the United States is interested in receiving more oil and gas from Russia to ease its reliance on Mideast sources...that is just one of the reasons that President Bush is holding hands with Putin this week....and we are getting closer to the ANWR source aren't we?

[SDR]

You mean. . .geographically?

[Kevin]

Events suggest the Bush administration is more interested in controlling Mideast sources of oil, with/for its corporate backers, than in reducing U.S. reliance on such sources.

[SDR]

Yessir. Al Gore was the most recent US high-office candidate to suggest that there is actually profit to be made in promoting new sources of energy. Fat chance that message had, in the face of public indifference and direct opposition by the vested conventional-energy cartel and its political handmaidens.

To watch the unctious Don Rumsfield, among others, lie with a completely straight (if theatrical) face about the complete absence of petro-motivation in the administration's designs on the Caspian oil fields and the trans-arabian pipeline route necessary to deliver its produce to Western refiners, is to behold a miracle, either of self-delusion, or of gall.

You cannot prepare for the future, while simultaneously denying that any preparation is necessary.

SDR

[Donald]

In this world, in order to enable society to develop, all its members have to assume responsibilities and make their contribution. If we do not make collective contributions then there will be no development.
-His Holiness the Dalai Lama, speaking to the Tibetan National Assembly

Remember the $51 a barrell...as it could very well be at its lowest price now, over the years to come. As previously mentioned we can blame it on demand. Demand is at a 25-year high, with Americans, Chinese and Indian users bathing in it, so supply must be increased ... and just what better place to start than ANWR?

Also ... let's restart building more nuclear power plants as alternate sources of energy. BTW, $50 a barrell is NOT a record. Remember, you must adjust these records for inflation. The record was clearly in the early 1980's, when the price would have been up to $80 a barrel. So stop the - dumb slur - bellyaching and combine your trips, or get a bicycle for starts, that is, if your into "new sources of energy"

[Kevin]

Ohmygod... a bicycle? Please, no, anything, ANYTHING but having to use the limbs god gave me!

Endurance running and the evolution of Homo [sapiens etc.]

http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v432/n7015/abs/nature03052_fs.html

Dennis M. Bramble, Daniel E. Lieberman
SUMMARY: Striding bipedalism is a key derived behaviour of hominids that possibly originated soon after the divergence of the chimpanzee and human lineages. Although bipedal...
CONTEXT: Most research on the evolution of human locomotion has focused on walking. There are a few indications that the earliest-known hominids were bipeds, and there is abundant fossil evidence that australopithecines habitually walked by at......
Nature 432, 345 - 352 (18 Nov 2004) Review

[Donald]

Hypocrisy. They want to deny Americans the ability to become less reliant on foreign oil and to pay lower prices at the pump. Somebody might make a profit, you know. We can't have that! In their socialist utopia, everyone rides their bicycle to work and heats their home with solar power. Everyone, that is, except them.......

[Kevin]

1) Who do you think is the imaginary "they" you are criticising? Perhaps another flimsy straw man?

2) The Bush administration shows no practical interest in reducing U.S. reliance on foreign oil - rather, their operational interest is shown to be controlling foreign oil.

3) The only substantive long-term way to reduce U.S. reliance on foreign oil is to reduce the U.S. reliance on oil overall. Early exploitation of ANWR would make essentially no difference in the long run.

4) There is also an urgent need to reduce use of all fossil fuels, across the board, to try to minimize the impact of global warming.

5) Conservation, while not the only solution, is by far the most cost-effective ("profitable") way to reduce our use of fossil fuels. Only a fool would ridicule energy conservation.

Global warming is the subject of this thread. Even if it is too slow moving to be seen without science, global warming is an enormous disaster, likely to be equivalent to many, many times the one tsumani we've just seen, horrifically devastating as that was.

As professionals responsible for the built environment and for having correct understanding of the public health and saftey impacts of our work, it is an ethical necessity for architects, civil and mechanical engineers, interior and landscape architects, and all our design consultants - regardless of political ideology - to acknowledge and act on this real threat of unprecedented scale.

[Donald]

[SDR]

"National sovereignty," when proclaimed as a cover for un-neighborly behavior by those powerful enough to get away with it, is the kind of defense mounted by a bully and his lawyers. It has no place in the peaceful and forward-looking affairs of civilized men, much less those who claim to "lead" the world.

To continue to claim that any Kyoto signatory has as its goal the "destroying of America's wealth" is just so much nonsense. Our wealth is presently being sold in the open marketplace, in the form of bonds. The unique position America holds as the world's #1 consumer puts us ever further out of balance; let us only hope that the redress, naturally meted out by that marketplace, will not be too painful.

Denial is not just a river in Egypt.

SDR

[Donald]

Of course, the details of the left are the same old anti-capitalist, socialist drivel we've heard since Al Gore's "Earth in the Balance" days. And if he was so sure that global warming is destroying the earth, then why didn't the Clinton-Gore administration submit the Kyoto treaty to the Senate for ratification? The left regularly slams Bush for not ratifying that treaty, while having done nothing to pass it when they could have.

Perhaps you're tired of hearing this, but there just simply is no scientific evidence that the actions of man have caused any increase in the earth's temperature. The only scientists who back this global warming fraud are either employed by government or work in the leftist, anti-capitalistic atmosphere of colleges and universities.

When there is no real solution to provide as evidence, the left (and SDR) refer to those who challenge the religion of global warming as "corporate funded lawyers or scientists." So, there you go. Since these scientists don't work for either some college or university or the government, they are "corporate-funded" and are therefore evil. This is exactly the response you would expect from a movement that is more anti-capitalist than it is pro-environment. Private sector is bad. Government is good. Remember, the left also made sure that the new buzz-words are not "global warming." Now the radicals are supposed to say "climate change." This is their tacit admission that the evidence isn't there to support their global warming scare campaign.

Here are a few links for you to consider on global warming:
http://www.nationalcenter.org/Kyoto.html

[SDR]

Odd -- the story keeps shifting. Sometimes the claim is that there is no global warming, while at other times it's that "there is no scientific evidence" that global warming is due to the activities of man.

"Methinks he doth protest too much. . ."

SDR

[Donald]

Yes, this tells the true essence of "The Hype".....California style:
http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA417.html

It the same tired message with a new cover.