David Roberts, editor at Gristmill, thinks we shouldn't use a Carbon Tax and rebate system because nobody in Washington thinks it's a good idea except most progressives and a few conservative columnists playing B'rer Rabbit and the Briar Patch. (see "Carbon tax is a poison pill")
""I guess I'm going to be barbecue this day." Brer Rabbit sighed. "But getting barbecued is a whole lot better than getting thrown in the briar patch." He sighed again. "No doubt about it. Getting barbecued is almost a blessing compared to being thrown in that briar patch on the other side of the road. If you got to go, go in a barbecue sauce. That's what I always say. How much lemon juice and brown sugar you put in yours?"-from mythfolklore.net
Yeah, those poor conservative shills or the Coal'N'Oil industries suddenly want anything but "Cap'N'Trade."
On Noes!! B'rer Obama! You gots us now and we know we have to change our coal burning ways. We'll do whatever you like just don make us deal with a "Cap'N'Trade"system; oh my think of the paper work.
Now B'rer Obama he knows how tricksy Coal'N'Oil can get and he surely is tired of getting kicked by them so he thinks he just might toss 'em in a sack of Carbon Tacks where the more they kick the more they get poked. Yep, it's a little bit of the hike over the hill to the shed where he can get a good strong sack and them Carbon Tacks but to be rid of Coal'N'Oil he jus might do it'. Yer gone git the Carbon Tacks in a nice tight sack he tells Coal'N'Oil.
Coal'N'Oil he surely don't want no Carbon Tacks in a nice tight sack so he thinks quick looks around and sees the crazy Sierra Club bird hanging out on a nearby tree limb. Throwin his voice he sings out like it's the Sierra Club bird... "Give 'em to the Carbon Off-sets" he sings, "they'll tear him to pieces and starve him to death those Carbon Off-sets will."
Well those Carbon Off-sets will fill my mouth with fur, bite me like a thousand house-flies and tear out my nails but surely that will be better than throwing me to the Cap'N'Trade system. Whatever you all do jus don' throw me there.
B'rer Obama thinks about this and decides that Carbon Off-sets won't hurt nearly enough and tell's Coal'N'Oil it might be fun to tie Coal'N'Oil up in front of his pump house and feed everyone who comes up to the pump house door with Sun-power seeds, Wind-turbinados and Geo-powershakes that he's going to pay for with Coal'N'Oil's tab down at the treasury. Coal'N'Oil let's go a mighty shudder and sings out.. "Well that's a relief because for a minute there I thought you were going to throw me to the Cap'N'Trade"system where I'd be cut to pieces by all those long Wall Street knives."
We all know how this story is supposed to end but remember what happened when California tried to throw Coal'N'Oil's big Uncle Enron into the Power'N'Trade system which was pretty much the Cap'N'Trade system with free drinks and skittles. Uncle Enron managed to steal California's paycheck and the deed to the house on the way in and things haven't gone right there since.
If B'rer Obama listens to a word Coal'N'Oil is singing or the confusion caused by the voice throwing and wailing by the Wall Street ravens who rely on Coal'N'Oil to feed them a steady supply of dead and dying economies to feed on the rest of us are sunk. It will be way over four years before anybody gets their hands around Coal'N'Oil's throat again because nobody's gonna trust B'rer Obama if he screws this one up and it could be twelve years of doing nothing useful before the winds blow the right way again. We played this game with B'rer Clinton and health care and people are still paying for that bungle.
Push the carbon tax now and rebate now and structure it so the first rebate checks arrive in mailbox's March 2010 and there won't be a whimper from the GOP. Nobody complains about their Social Security checks arriving despite the fact that THAT'S an income redistribution system. A per capita rebate system advantages the very people the GOP would try and rally against any kind of carbon fee; the rural middle class. I'm pretty sure that given the choice between God in the pulpit and Mammon in the mailbox they'll choose mammon.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Reality Challenged Congress
crossposted from a Gristmill thread on the lack of transit funding.
Face it; this congress isn't that different than the last congress and reality seems to be a bit of a challenge for congressional delegates.
Climate change is real, very dangerous and accelerating. Congressional proposals at best will merely slow the rate of acceleration and do absolutely nothing to mitigate. There are no viable bills proposed to get GHG emissions to zero and then sequester atmospheric CO2 on a massive scale. None.
Oil imports have grown as a percentage of use every year but possibly 2008 in the US and technologically viable standards that would make every single car, van, SUV and light truck produced plug-in hybrid vehicles aren't anywhere to be seen. We're still trying to manage with the completely discredited ethanol industry.
The fastest way to reduce petroleum costs would be to convert homes and businesses and the entire state of Hawaii from heating oil and propane use to ground-loop heating and solar power. Congress is totally crickets on the issue even though it's a proven money producing investment.
State, local and federal government agencies can't afford asphalt and can't find it if prices stray into the affordable range. Interurban and rural rail connections, a standard feature of life in 1910 rural america, are completely off the boards as a viable solution.
A Congress that gives our clown college bankers free cash in fire-hose quantities and nickels and dimes food stamp recipients isn't going to suddenly bring a third neuron to the party. We're pretty much stuck with sitting back and watching the beatings continuing till morale improves.
Face it; this congress isn't that different than the last congress and reality seems to be a bit of a challenge for congressional delegates.
Climate change is real, very dangerous and accelerating. Congressional proposals at best will merely slow the rate of acceleration and do absolutely nothing to mitigate. There are no viable bills proposed to get GHG emissions to zero and then sequester atmospheric CO2 on a massive scale. None.
Oil imports have grown as a percentage of use every year but possibly 2008 in the US and technologically viable standards that would make every single car, van, SUV and light truck produced plug-in hybrid vehicles aren't anywhere to be seen. We're still trying to manage with the completely discredited ethanol industry.
The fastest way to reduce petroleum costs would be to convert homes and businesses and the entire state of Hawaii from heating oil and propane use to ground-loop heating and solar power. Congress is totally crickets on the issue even though it's a proven money producing investment.
State, local and federal government agencies can't afford asphalt and can't find it if prices stray into the affordable range. Interurban and rural rail connections, a standard feature of life in 1910 rural america, are completely off the boards as a viable solution.
A Congress that gives our clown college bankers free cash in fire-hose quantities and nickels and dimes food stamp recipients isn't going to suddenly bring a third neuron to the party. We're pretty much stuck with sitting back and watching the beatings continuing till morale improves.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Ok, that's weird.....
While I was nosing around Gristmill and reading a sermon on global warming I was loading todays arctic sea ice pic from Cryosphere today. If those guys are doing this on purpose it's NOT funny.
Click on the picture and look closely.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Santa's Pissed.
I think Santa's had enough and has pulled the death rays from the weapons locker. If this picture doesn't scare you then a look over at the Cryosphere Today website where it came from should do it.In particular the tale of the tape should get you thinking that things are changing a little faster than the evening news lets on. It could even be said to happening "faster than expected."
Naked child needs what?
This was originally posted over on Gristmill blog in response to a investigation into the "more technology needed" argument. Rather than looking at what we have or want why shouldn't we look at what we need?
Take a naked child, what does that child need?
The cheapest available solutions to the above problems are:
Carbon Capture can be handled by
Take a naked child, what does that child need?
- It needs it's parents to care for it.
- Therefore we must support the parents (community services)
- It needs clean air
- It needs clean water
- It needs to be kept in a thermally stable environment 65 to 85 degrees F or so. (clothing and also housing)
- It's family needs food and food security
- a small fuel or power source to cook food
- It needs a mentally stimulating environment (a large garden is ideal)
- It will need some medicines at some point. (provided by the garden and community but also trade)
- Access to accurate information
The cheapest available solutions to the above problems are:
- One worker families or no more than 60 hours total for two workers.
- social safety nets (cheaper than prisons)
- restricted burning of fuels (no coal, oil, biofuel or gas burning without community restrictions)
- No net discharge of wastes to water systems. Because dumping fertilizer in drinking water is insane that's why.
- A cob or straw bale house (mud and straw; what could be cheaper?) works everywhere but the arctic where logs and mud work just fine. Geo-exchange is just another way of accessing thermal mass. Fabrics can be made from a very wide variety of materials from wool to musk ox to hemp to nettles.
- Food security depends upon a biodiversity of food sources. Multiple sources ensure that no failure of a single source results in disaster. Permaculture agriculture promotes this concept. By contrast our current food stream is almost entirely corn, soy, rice, wheat, potatoes, barley and cane sugar.
- Solar ovens backed up by wood-gas stoves could provide most of the cooking heat at fraction of current fuel use of even the poorest families.
- The cost benefit analysis of gardens effects on health suggest that for that reason alone people should spend time gardening.
- A community based upon healthy diet and exercise can more easily afford to care for the remaining sick.
- Durable, cheap laptop computers have been designed that could be available to everybody on the planet. Information is the best birth control.
- bicycles, barges, heavy rail and sail-powered shipping can move the worlds goods. Airships don't require roads so could possibly be cheaper than rail on many routes. Solar power and solar-generated liquid fuels would be sufficient to provide this transportation structure.
Carbon Capture can be handled by
- Biochar agriculture (requires a hoe and machete)
- Rangeland management prioritizing soil optimization (requires a boy with a long stick to prod cattle)
- Forest reserves, orchard crops and coppicing. (requires a billhook and pruning knife)
- As a last recourse seeding oceans with powdered minerals that fix carbon dioxide. (requires massive industrial machinery and large shipping capacity)
Friday, April 18, 2008
I get spanked.
David Roberts, blogmaster over at Gristmill has spanked me for being a bad boy on his blog. No surprise it comes quickly after I've jumped all over WalMart's pet environmentalist Adam Werbach. Read over my shoulder now......
What to do, what to do? I guess I must make my case.....
Solution sets
David- In my little town the western border of the town is bisected by the train tracks that run from Sacramento to Seattle. All day long you can cross those tracks, look north, look south and see nothing; no train. For 23 hours and 20 minutes per day there is no train on those tracks. If you don't live by the tracks and just happen across them for five minutes here or there you might think them a safe place to hang out. Somebody makes this mistake every few months.
A person who is "hysterical" about a danger that others can't perceive may be crazy or they may have more information. The danger is real, it is global, it has the potential to cause a mass extinction and eliminate the support systems for the majority of the human race. None of these ideas originate with me or lack support in peer-reviewed science.
A few years ago I wasn't concerned about the climate all that much. I drove small cars and biked around in good weather so it wasn't my problem. Took my cans, bottles and paper to the recycling bin, kept a little veggie garden and left well enough alone. The 9-11 thing and the resulting wars woke me up to the fact that we were going to war to preserve the right not to drive but to drive really big vehicles. I started reading.
Mike Rupert, Jan Lundberg, Mathew Simmons, Paul Chefurka, the crew over at The Oil Drum, all built on foundations laid by Edward Abbey, Kim Stanley Robinson and Ernest Callenbach. They all point to the same conclusion. That the human race is walking down a very dark path. This isn't even close to my idea; I walk a very well trodden and exquisitely mapped path that starts at Homer and continues to the edge of tomorrow.
The earth is limited. Our space on this earth is a small portion of the total space. You cannot place your emissions or waste in a place that is sufficiently "away." You cannot push your neighbor far enough "away" that the damage your conflict caused will not somehow come back to you. If you take from your neighbors share that person will be angry with you. If he then is forced to take from his neighbor they both may be angry with you.
You know very well that you and I and especially AW and the people he works for exist by taking from our neighbors share. It's the heart of our culture. That very concept was driven home here on Grist with Michael Tobis' post "My Little World (and yours)
So, yeah, I'm a PITA on your board and other boards sometimes. Nothing new there; you have jabailo, Black Wallaby, Manaker and many others in your peanut gallery. I also propose solutions, valid, tested, solutions regularly. I earned my living with my hands so star-wars carbon defense systems don't appeal to me as much as digging charcoal into the soil with a hoe and then planting orchard trees.
I've proposed or promoted solutions on concentrated solar power, organic gardening, transition economics, carbon capture, golf, cars rice apples cars again also airships, tactics of debate, housing, hybrid utilization, biomass and much more. I've posted a lot of commentary and criticism most of which doesn't rate a comment by anyone; no surprise there. I promise that in my 548 posts to date (I counted) I've never once used the phrase "the end is nigh."
Your search engine yields 13 results for the word "sheeple." This one is mine and it's a rant, it even says "rant warning." Here are 1, 2, 3 posted by some David Roberts guy. Twice in defense of some enviro's association with greenwashing. My single use of the word is in response to DR's use in thread #2. Sadly, I frequently refer to "sheep" as grazing animals known for mowing lawns and yeah once I used "sheep" to describe the "fleecing" of gamblers in Vegas. Harsh criticism that and beyond the pale.
I frequently post that nasty link to the Google search: ["faster than expected" warming]. Just the headings on that search will give you the willies and a news alert on that string is worse. Repeated posting of links isn't banned on your site last I checked. Please inform Greyfalcon if they are. It's grim reading but I only post the link to the search. Luckily nothing bad happens like that right?
My entire life I've belonged to that crazy club that voluntarily moved towards a green ethic. Bookstores have whole sections of lushly photographed adobe, cob and straw bale houses but still the majority live in CO2 spewing urban or suburban tract housing.
We have the solutions to global warming that would allow us to lead comfortable lives at far less energy input in human labor, fuels, biomass and minerals than the current economic standard but simply desiring change is useless without the resources to change. People want these solutions just like they want universal health care but "something" presents a barrier. That barrier is economic inequality. People with limited economic choices just can't buy land and put a net-zero house on it. They can't afford houses at all when housing prices are run up by speculators and insane mortgages. It's been a bit of a problem recently.
So yeah, I'm bitter towards the comfortable class. Thank god I'm alone, right? It makes it easy to dismiss people like me as jealous cranks. Then those Brown grads can relax at their $200 lunches where they discuss profit opportunities in cap-and-trade schemes and the "BLUE" labeling of disposable consumer goods. They can cash those fat checks and move on. Hey go for it; it's not like lives are at stake or something.
Pangolin,
Let me be crystal clear. The current path the human race is on amounts to mass suicide of about 5 billion people.(quoting me-pangolin)
The fact that you believe this is crystal clear from the first ten million times you said it. You say it on every thread; it is your response to every subject, no matter the size or nature.
You might think that hectoring people for whom you radiate contempt (and frequently refer to as "sheeple") is a good way to avert the outcome you fear, but I assure you it is not. When people see that discussion here is dominated by strident cries that The End Is Nigh -- and, by implication, that anything else they have on their mind reveals them to be deluded and selfish -- they run the other direction. Adam and I have both had reports of people who wanted to discuss his article but were put off by the vitriol in the comments here.
I can't imagine that anyone who reads these boards doesn't know where you're coming from by now. If anyone's mind was going to be changed by it, it's changed. I think you should take the gentle advice offered more than once now and tone it down.
grist.org
by David Roberts at 1:32 PM on 17 Apr 2008
What to do, what to do? I guess I must make my case.....
Solution sets
David- In my little town the western border of the town is bisected by the train tracks that run from Sacramento to Seattle. All day long you can cross those tracks, look north, look south and see nothing; no train. For 23 hours and 20 minutes per day there is no train on those tracks. If you don't live by the tracks and just happen across them for five minutes here or there you might think them a safe place to hang out. Somebody makes this mistake every few months.
A person who is "hysterical" about a danger that others can't perceive may be crazy or they may have more information. The danger is real, it is global, it has the potential to cause a mass extinction and eliminate the support systems for the majority of the human race. None of these ideas originate with me or lack support in peer-reviewed science.
A few years ago I wasn't concerned about the climate all that much. I drove small cars and biked around in good weather so it wasn't my problem. Took my cans, bottles and paper to the recycling bin, kept a little veggie garden and left well enough alone. The 9-11 thing and the resulting wars woke me up to the fact that we were going to war to preserve the right not to drive but to drive really big vehicles. I started reading.
Mike Rupert, Jan Lundberg, Mathew Simmons, Paul Chefurka, the crew over at The Oil Drum, all built on foundations laid by Edward Abbey, Kim Stanley Robinson and Ernest Callenbach. They all point to the same conclusion. That the human race is walking down a very dark path. This isn't even close to my idea; I walk a very well trodden and exquisitely mapped path that starts at Homer and continues to the edge of tomorrow.
The earth is limited. Our space on this earth is a small portion of the total space. You cannot place your emissions or waste in a place that is sufficiently "away." You cannot push your neighbor far enough "away" that the damage your conflict caused will not somehow come back to you. If you take from your neighbors share that person will be angry with you. If he then is forced to take from his neighbor they both may be angry with you.
You know very well that you and I and especially AW and the people he works for exist by taking from our neighbors share. It's the heart of our culture. That very concept was driven home here on Grist with Michael Tobis' post "My Little World (and yours)
So, yeah, I'm a PITA on your board and other boards sometimes. Nothing new there; you have jabailo, Black Wallaby, Manaker and many others in your peanut gallery. I also propose solutions, valid, tested, solutions regularly. I earned my living with my hands so star-wars carbon defense systems don't appeal to me as much as digging charcoal into the soil with a hoe and then planting orchard trees.
I've proposed or promoted solutions on concentrated solar power, organic gardening, transition economics, carbon capture, golf, cars rice apples cars again also airships, tactics of debate, housing, hybrid utilization, biomass and much more. I've posted a lot of commentary and criticism most of which doesn't rate a comment by anyone; no surprise there. I promise that in my 548 posts to date (I counted) I've never once used the phrase "the end is nigh."
Your search engine yields 13 results for the word "sheeple." This one is mine and it's a rant, it even says "rant warning." Here are 1, 2, 3 posted by some David Roberts guy. Twice in defense of some enviro's association with greenwashing. My single use of the word is in response to DR's use in thread #2. Sadly, I frequently refer to "sheep" as grazing animals known for mowing lawns and yeah once I used "sheep" to describe the "fleecing" of gamblers in Vegas. Harsh criticism that and beyond the pale.
I frequently post that nasty link to the Google search: ["faster than expected" warming]. Just the headings on that search will give you the willies and a news alert on that string is worse. Repeated posting of links isn't banned on your site last I checked. Please inform Greyfalcon if they are. It's grim reading but I only post the link to the search. Luckily nothing bad happens like that right?
My entire life I've belonged to that crazy club that voluntarily moved towards a green ethic. Bookstores have whole sections of lushly photographed adobe, cob and straw bale houses but still the majority live in CO2 spewing urban or suburban tract housing.
We have the solutions to global warming that would allow us to lead comfortable lives at far less energy input in human labor, fuels, biomass and minerals than the current economic standard but simply desiring change is useless without the resources to change. People want these solutions just like they want universal health care but "something" presents a barrier. That barrier is economic inequality. People with limited economic choices just can't buy land and put a net-zero house on it. They can't afford houses at all when housing prices are run up by speculators and insane mortgages. It's been a bit of a problem recently.
So yeah, I'm bitter towards the comfortable class. Thank god I'm alone, right? It makes it easy to dismiss people like me as jealous cranks. Then those Brown grads can relax at their $200 lunches where they discuss profit opportunities in cap-and-trade schemes and the "BLUE" labeling of disposable consumer goods. They can cash those fat checks and move on. Hey go for it; it's not like lives are at stake or something.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Suppressing the Solution Set
Let's be absolutely clear; a solution set to environmental problems exists.
They consist of deploying:
The above list are systems that have proven to have energy use patterns substantially cheaper thermodynamically than existing systems. They could effectively replace the majority of services provided by our existing economic technology set while reducing pollution, birth rates and social disruption.
Instead of solutions we are offered the false solution set of:
It is worth noting that even the most obvious portions of the solution set are ignored by major media voices. George Bush himself has a geo-exchange HVAC system in his Crawford, Texas house and despite the fact that it offers a major wedge that would allow reduction in coal, oil and natural gas burning at a small profit yet it is generally ignored by both the media and Congress in favor of non-solutions like the hydrogen hype.
This can't be accidental since the promoters of the true solution set have both physics and verifiable demographic studies on their side. Marine reserves increase fish stocks and social safety nets reduce birth rates; both are desirable goals unless one is seeking short-term profits from a mass market. The evidence at hand leads to the conclusion that the mass media is being directed to sell us a false solution set in order to maximize profits for a tiny minority.
What it's going to do to the vast majority is too horrible to contemplate.
They consist of deploying:
- Wind Power
- PV solar distributed
- Concentrated Solar Power built in optimal sites
- Geo-exchange thermal management replacing HVAC systems
- Hot rock geothermal energy
- Ultra-light rail or personal rapid transit
- Inter-urban heavy rail for freight
- High-speed rail replacing air travel
- Organic farming, including the pasturing of meat animals and elimination of CAFOs.
- Biochar agriculture for carbon capture, NOX capture and nitrate fixation
- Conservation retro-fits of all occupied buildings
- Social safety nets- a universal right to food, housing, minimal personal needs.
- Health care- Cuban model as a minimal standard
- Birth control- available freely on demand
- Returning to a walkable, bicycle-friendly urban space
- Cradle to cradle consumer products
- Marine and riparian reserves, sanctuaries and protections to allow ocean recovery
- Regulated markets on the EU model
- Organized labor
- Any other solution that provides service in a "thermodynamically free" fashion i.e. where the EROI is greater than 2 including externalities
The above list are systems that have proven to have energy use patterns substantially cheaper thermodynamically than existing systems. They could effectively replace the majority of services provided by our existing economic technology set while reducing pollution, birth rates and social disruption.
Instead of solutions we are offered the false solution set of:
- The hydrogen hype
- Nuclear power
- Carbon capture and storage
- Coal burning
- Biofuels
- "Free market" economics (loot and run corporate management)
- Cheap labor (union-busting by para-militaries)
- Debt economies
- HMOs
- Pharmaceuticals
- Homelessness
- Mass starvation by market forces (see biofuels)
- Abstinance education (and resulting STD's)
- SUVs
- War
- Sprawl built on the quick, cheap and leaky model.
- GMOs
- CAFOs
- "Disposables," plastic bags, shoes, razors, clothes, employees...
- "Farmed" fish (yuck)
- Subsidized air travel
- Subsidized auto industry
- Monopolies i.e. WalMart, Microsoft, ADM & Monsanto
- Other solutions sets that offer choke points where essential services can be harvested for income by corporate oligarchs.
It is worth noting that even the most obvious portions of the solution set are ignored by major media voices. George Bush himself has a geo-exchange HVAC system in his Crawford, Texas house and despite the fact that it offers a major wedge that would allow reduction in coal, oil and natural gas burning at a small profit yet it is generally ignored by both the media and Congress in favor of non-solutions like the hydrogen hype.
This can't be accidental since the promoters of the true solution set have both physics and verifiable demographic studies on their side. Marine reserves increase fish stocks and social safety nets reduce birth rates; both are desirable goals unless one is seeking short-term profits from a mass market. The evidence at hand leads to the conclusion that the mass media is being directed to sell us a false solution set in order to maximize profits for a tiny minority.
What it's going to do to the vast majority is too horrible to contemplate.
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