I love that, Gin. I sent it to my reactionary cousins. . .
So what's up with this "flip-flop" on campaign financing ? Eve Mark Shields went off on him for it -- "epic hypocrisy" was the phrase. Sure, I believe in public (and limited) financing of (future) political campaigns. . .but the system is broken. Don't change horses in mid-stream. . .or pick the horse that will get you there ?
no one really cares about public financing. in fact i think conservatives will take another look at obama because he opted out. think about it, we are taxed - regardless of party affiliation - to pay for the presidential campaigns, to think i helped fund GWB and McSame annoys the shit out of me.
time heals all, apparently: john mccain attempted to do the same thing, withdraw from public financing back in february, but the FEC wouldn't allow it. but i guess, since it's over a week ago, nobody in the media will remember this.
and if your tax money paying for the elections bothers you, beta, think about how many KBR employees' kids you're surely sending to the ivy leagues! they make some serious (and corrupt) bank!
disaffected clintonites are not going to sway the election one way or the other. their numbers are statistically insignificant. i think it's funny how so many people are still talking about the angry hillary supporter. far more people (myself included) would have been driven away from voting democrat had she gotten the nod than they have been by obama getting it.
sure, go ahead, vote for McCain, and when your retarded children go to Iraq and get blown to shit or your daughters get raped by right conservatives and they can't get that abortion, we'll know who to blame.
"No political movement has ever had any sway without anger. Call it what you want. Sour grapes, sore losers... but I can tell you it's real and it's valid and it's the kind of anger that makes change."
now he's doing a Q & A...talking about retrofitting, building codes, commissioning, labor unions...imagine a president that at least knows the a/e/c terminology!
i'm pretty sure gWb thinks a typical building code would be "open sesame!"
1. drawing down troops from iraq
2. fix health care system, give everyone health care
3. energy, let's get it right - energy efficiency and independence
seriously - we already pay for free education for every kid from kindergarten through high school. i say when you're 18 you're on your own .. you gotta figure it out at that point.
california's budget provides something like $10,000 for every kid in public schools (per year). 53% of california's tax revenue goes to public schools. and for what? so half the kids can drop out; never graduate? oh but let's through more money at it, that'll fix things!
not everyone wants or needs to go to college. and obama wants to throw another 4 grand for kids to sleep through community college classes? no thanks
here's an analogy for you; PT's say that if you need knee surgery on one knee, you're better off - in the long run - to get both done. why? because; first, you're most likely gonna need the other done later, and second, doing both at one time makes therapy easier. easier because the pain of therapy is so bad that if you just do one, you are less likely to do the other.
"seriously - we already pay for free education for every kid from kindergarten through high school. i say when you're 18 you're on your own .. you gotta figure it out at that point"
The example of Ireland shows us that Obama is right.
Karl Rove was impressed with Barack Obama when he first met him. But now he sees him as a “coolly arrogant” elitist.
This was Rove’s take on Obama to Republicans at the Capitol Hill Club Monday, according to Christianne Klein of ABC News:
“Even if you never met him, you know this guy. He’s the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by.”
Actually, that sounds more like W.
The cheap populism is really rich coming from Karl Rove. When was the last time he kicked back with a corncob pipe to watch professional wrestling?
Rove is trying to spin his myths, as he used to do with such devastating effect, but it won’t work this time. The absurd spectacle of rich white conservatives trying to paint Obama as a watercress sandwich with the crust cut off seems ugly and fake.
Obama can be aloof and dismissive at times, and he’s certainly self-regarding, carrying the aura of the Ivy faculty club. But isn’t that better than the aura of the country clubs that tried to keep out blacks? It’s ironic, and maybe inevitable, that the first African-American nominee comes across as a prince of privilege. He is, as Leon Wieseltier of The New Republic wrote, not the seed but the flower of the civil rights movement.
Unlike W., Obama doesn’t have a chip on his shoulder and he doesn’t make a lot of snarky remarks. He tries to stay on a positive keel and see things from the other person’s point of view.
He’s not Richie Rich, saved time and again by Daddy’s influence and Daddy’s friends, the one who got waved into Yale and Harvard and cushy business deals, who drank too much and snickered at the intellectuals and gave them snide nicknames.
Obama is the outsider who never really knew his dad and who grew up in modest circumstances, the kid who had to work hard to charm whites and build a life with blacks and step up to the smarty-pants set.
He might be smoking, but it would be at a cafe, hunched over a New York Times, an Atlantic magazine, his MacBook and some organic fruit-flavored tea, listening to Bob Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks” on his iPod.
Rove was doing a variation on the old William Buckley line: “I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston telephone book than by the 2,000 members of the Harvard faculty.”
Conservatives love playing this little game, acting as if the “elite” Democratic candidates are not in touch with people like themselves, even though the guys doing the attacking — like Rove, Limbaugh, O’Reilly and Hannity — are wealthy and cosseted.
Haven’t we had enough of this hypocritical comedy of people in the elite disowning their social status for political purposes? The Bushes had to move all the way to Texas from Greenwich to make their blue blood appear more red.
Everyone who ever became president was in the elite one way or another, including Andrew Jackson.
Rove and Co. are nervous because they see that Obama, in rejecting public financing, is not going to be a chump, like some past Democratic candidates.
For some of Obama’s critics, it’s a breathtaking bit of fungible principles, as though Gandhi suddenly donned a Dolce & Gabbana, or Dolce & Mahatma, loincloth.
But even as the Republicans limn him as John Kerry, as someone who is too haughty and too “foreign,” Obama is determined not to repeat what Kerry thinks was a big mistake: not having enough money to compete against the Republicans in 2004.
Charlie Black crassly argued in Fortune that a terrorist attack would “be a big advantage” for John McCain. And what’s scary is, Black is the smartest adviser McCain’s got.
It’s hard to believe that if Americans get attacked after all these years of getting strip-searched at the airport, they’re going to be filled with confidence at the performance of the Republicans on national security. And at least Obama wants to catch Osama and doesn’t think he’s getting his directions on war from “a higher Father.”
Rove’s mythmaking about Obama won’t fly. If he means that Obama has brains, what’s wrong with that? If he means that Obama is successful, what’s wrong with that? If he means that Obama has education and intellectual sophistication, what’s wrong with that?
Many of Obama’s traits are the traits that people in the population aspire to.
It looks as if Rove is on the verge of realizing his dream of creating a permanent position for the Republicans.
we're the saudi arabia of coal, if we can figure out a way to burn it cleanly let's do it
yikes...did he really say that?! there's no way to burn anything cleanly, that's an oxymoron. on top of that, extraction of coal is very environmentally detrimental. especially mountaintop removal. coal is a dead end. i can't believe how out of touch these guys are about these kinds of things...or maybe that's just where the money's coming from.
hopefully it's a very big "IF", and he did allude to being against mountaintop removal mining. i'm not sure you can have it both ways. what he said about fining oil companies who sit on offshore sites, leaving them un-drilled to keep production down and costs up sounded pretty good, especially in light of this recent offshore nonsense going on now.
but it is ridiculous--4arch, i remember at least one of the later Democratic primary debates on CNN was sponsored by Clean Coal...what a load.
4arch, I sympathize with your view. My brother is in photovoltaics and Ive spent a fair amount of time armchair researching this stuff, and the more and more I learn about it the more and more I realize how fucked we are. I mean as it is now solar cells rack up a higher carbon footprint in fabrication than they save in the energy they produce in their lifetime. Wind is great, wave energy is great, but even if we fully built out our wind and wave belts youre only going to get 20-30% of our total energy needs. Nuclear has similar problems to solar, in that the carbon footprint of extraction and refinement of uranium has a hidden carbon cost. Not to mention Uranium is a diminishing resource as well.
The new clean coal test-beds are actually trying to reach 100% carbon retention by storing the carbon in mineral deposits beneath the plant rather than releasing it into the atmosphere. I fully understand even if we were able to achieve this all the same hidden costs are built into coal, extraction and processing, environmental damage etc, as affect nuclear, but its far cheaper, and if were storing a dangerous material in mineral beds Id rather it was carbon dioxide than nuclear waste.
So to me its an inevitable part of the solution. At some point we'll be making 70% efficient solar cells for pennies and we can scale out of all this rube-goldberg shit but for the next 30 years or so its going to be just a necessity of survival. At least obama is trying to make the big practical steps we can to get us closer.
on democracynow.org yesterday they said 30 gigawatts of wind power came online this year that would be like building 30 nuclear plants (witch would have long term disastrous and unstable toxic pollution)
Look I appreciate your zeal but if you really want to see anything done you guys are going to have got to get real. Im all for wind, Im all for geotherm and solar and national smart-grids and conservation but the question still remains where are you going to get the other 60% of the pie Thats a real problem. We can put in energy efficient appliances and light bulbs but we cant rebuild every building in the country LEED platinum in 20 years. We can run all our cars electric and hydrogen but that energy still needs to come from somewhere. This is a real problem and hippie dippy kill-the-corporations chants arent going make it magically go away. I want 70% solar cells just like everyone but that is a very vexing physics problem, and even if we were to dump 100 billion at it we might not get there for 20 years.
The problem isnt the money, its the time line. You could throw 3 trillion at it and still there are unavoidable development and implementation times to deal with. We could throw a 100 billion at carbon capture, an already proven technology, and get energy returns in less than 5 years. We could do the same with new breeder reactors and get ourselves into a much better situation than where we are now. But because of the really complex microchemistry problems in photovoltaics the technologies that are proven now arent even getting a carbon neutral net energy gain over their unit lifetimes. We can get there, its the holy grail and brilliant minds are working on it, but if were talking 10 or 20 years before we are able to best coal and nuclear dollar for dollar, and another 10 years ramping up production to the point where the gross energy output is sustaining us youve still got a 30 year gap to fill.
I know, and Im even being a bit pessimistic. We could ramp up light-rail in cities and high-speed between, move toward local agriculture, but I think for most americans if the dollar for dollar choice is between rationing food and oil and filling up salt-deposits with CO2 there isnt going to be much debate.
I believe it's possible that the energy industries are stonewalling the use of precipitators, for reasons of expense (?). Electrostatic precipitators are capable of cleaning smoke-stack release gasses, and have been around for at least 50 years. It may be comparable to the auto-industry resistance to air bags and (more recently, but ongoing) gas milage. "We can't do it; it adds too much to the cost of each unit."
Alternative energy will be driven by demand. The point of this is not that alternative energies need to be viable alternatives to oil consumption *immediately*, clearly, developing these things will take some time (and money investment as well).
But the point is: there are *already* alternatives to oil consumption for the consumer: driving less (which creates market pressure for car companies to increase the fuel efficiency of their cars), , taking existing public transit more (which increases demand for more public transit development), walking more (which shifts demand from sprawl towards more livable, pedestrian urbanism), buying more locally grown and manufactured goods (since, as oil prices increase, those costs are inevitably embedded in products), flying less and taking the train more (which produces more demand for development and technological modernization of rail systems), buying existing products which reduce energy consumption in homes (which creates an increasing market for those products like solar panels, energy efficient glazing and insulation, natural ventilation over hvac, makes these products and markets more profitable and leads to their growth).
Yes, this will take time, but the key is: demand will lead to market development... Markets respond to price. You see this everywhere. People trying to sell their gas guzzlers, people driving less, trying to move to more efficient commutes, etc... higher priced oil does, and will have an impact on the evolution of markets.
This is not new. This is the same thing that has happened in europe, the same thing that has happened in Japan. and it's the market forces which have lead to the development of more energy efficient, less oil dependent lifestyles and cultures than what we have here in America. Lets get real? Get real and bite the bullet, take the growing pains, and detox from oil addiction... People complain about supply, but lets get real: America MADE this energy crisis... It's a wake up call, but without it, if we socially anaestheticize people into continue with a self-destructive, wasteful, and inefficient way of life and development, we'll only reach a point of energy meltdown... we still have oil at present, but the only thing that can be done to avert an energy catastrophe is if people change their consumption patterns... This is not easy, and the thing that people will respond to more than anything else is: money... Unless prices rise, unless people feel a pain in their pocketbooks, they won't change. Better to develop renewable alternative energy sources (driven by demand) NOW, than wait it out until we are at the point of energy and economic meltdown... This is something that requires full investment now... We need to stop whining about oil supplies and instead curb our consumption... It's painful, but it's a necessary evil, medicine we desperately need...
Why is it then that we consume 1/4 of the world's oil, even though we occupy less than 1/20 of the world population? Realistically, the best way to solve the energy crisis is to reduce consumption, let the market reflect increasing demand for alternatives, which only drive and accelerate the development of these things... Within the global marketplace, our dependence and addiction to oil, which is *non-renewable* is a competitive disadvantge for us... We consume way more than other countries, and we pay for it... We need to change to compete with countries like China, who are already ahead in their mobilization to find energy alternatives (at least in terms of their investment in it)... Subsidizing and encouraging ongoing dependence on oil makes us weaker economically, forces our hand in foreign policy, and actually weaker militarily... Oil producing regions have us by the balls...
But I think Obama, in being independent of lobbyists with interests in oil, is better primed to do more in the interest of the people, will do more to develop alternative energy sources... McCain's commitment to the war for oil, his encouragement of much greater increase in domestic oil production (which by the way will take years to develop as well), suggests to me that he is not concerned with issues of climate change, and is short sited in terms of his energy policy. Inevitably, oil reserves *will* be depleted, and the rising prices are a result of growing demand globally, not just reductions in supply... Oil is on a decline, and unless we focus on alternative energy immediately and with full force, the problem is not going away, it is only getting worse as more and more other countries which are much more populous countries industrialize and demand outsstrips supply... Prices are going up whether or not we drill a few (by comparison small) oil reserves at the expensive of preserving our natural environment, and this oil will not even be consumed by us... Alot of this will simply be traded in a global marketplace in which oil demand is on the increase...
The truth is, the government only does so much... Investment is important, but alot of investment will be driven by market demand... It's 90% up to the people to produce the change, even if it's simply by being wise critical consumers that do the best thing for their own pocketbooks. Spend less on gas, and spend more on other things that you need... Why can't people just accept the fact that this is a demand issue, and not primarily a supply issue? I am optimistic that people are resourceful enough to turn things around... It's inevitable, people change consumption patterns and lifestyles because of market forces, it saves them money...
I'm repeating alot of this from another oil thread, but I think the thing that will kill us isn't paying $5 or $6 for gas, it's the social anaesthetics that force feed people bad consumption habits (against market forces) that will kill us...
Even clean coal technology will only be developed because of the market pressure from energy alternatives, and because of the rising costs of oil, and the rising environmental costs that cause people to demand cleaner alternatives...
VOTE OBAMA
I love that, Gin. I sent it to my reactionary cousins. . .
So what's up with this "flip-flop" on campaign financing ? Eve Mark Shields went off on him for it -- "epic hypocrisy" was the phrase. Sure, I believe in public (and limited) financing of (future) political campaigns. . .but the system is broken. Don't change horses in mid-stream. . .or pick the horse that will get you there ?
no one really cares about public financing. in fact i think conservatives will take another look at obama because he opted out. think about it, we are taxed - regardless of party affiliation - to pay for the presidential campaigns, to think i helped fund GWB and McSame annoys the shit out of me.
time heals all, apparently: john mccain attempted to do the same thing, withdraw from public financing back in february, but the FEC wouldn't allow it. but i guess, since it's over a week ago, nobody in the media will remember this.
and if your tax money paying for the elections bothers you, beta, think about how many KBR employees' kids you're surely sending to the ivy leagues! they make some serious (and corrupt) bank!
if i listed all the things that annoy me, i'd have to start a new thread.
this is on topic
http://onebigtorrent.org/torrents/3531/BBC-Panorama--IRAQ-Daylight-Robbery--What-happened-to-the-23billion-2008-06-10-
good look into the fascistic elements of the war
I've never been the type of person to drop in on forums that I disagree with and troll, but after reading [url=
this]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-tomasic/hell-no-puma-spokesman-wi_b_108581.html]this article[/url], I'm tempted. Anyone else want to cause some trouble?
Well crap. Sorry.
this article
1600th post... 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue!
disaffected clintonites are not going to sway the election one way or the other. their numbers are statistically insignificant. i think it's funny how so many people are still talking about the angry hillary supporter. far more people (myself included) would have been driven away from voting democrat had she gotten the nod than they have been by obama getting it.
sure, go ahead, vote for McCain, and when your retarded children go to Iraq and get blown to shit or your daughters get raped by right conservatives and they can't get that abortion, we'll know who to blame.
Bower -- what crap.
"No political movement has ever had any sway without anger. Call it what you want. Sour grapes, sore losers... but I can tell you it's real and it's valid and it's the kind of anger that makes change."
it's not only anger it is emotion in general and it is because we all have the need to Empathize
some reading on Anger And Domination Systems:
http://www.cnvc.org/en/what-nvc/articles-writings/anger-and-domination-systems/anger-and-domination-systems
obama webcast on right now: he is speaking about energy policy in Nevada:
http://www.barackobama.com/live/
thanks!
i like that solar panel backdrop
now he's doing a Q & A...talking about retrofitting, building codes, commissioning, labor unions...imagine a president that at least knows the a/e/c terminology!
i'm pretty sure gWb thinks a typical building code would be "open sesame!"
obama, 3 main issues when he takes office:
1. drawing down troops from iraq
2. fix health care system, give everyone health care
3. energy, let's get it right - energy efficiency and independence
yeah!
uh-oh, some guy's asking about nukes ..
that sounds about right, my friend.
obama: we're the saudi arabia of coal, if we can figure out a way to burn it cleanly let's do it
$4,000 college credit for every student every year so community college is 'free'
woah that's a lot of tax money!
hehe, i thought that one might irk you a little, FRC...i'm impressed you're listening, though!
seriously - we already pay for free education for every kid from kindergarten through high school. i say when you're 18 you're on your own .. you gotta figure it out at that point.
california's budget provides something like $10,000 for every kid in public schools (per year). 53% of california's tax revenue goes to public schools. and for what? so half the kids can drop out; never graduate? oh but let's through more money at it, that'll fix things!
not everyone wants or needs to go to college. and obama wants to throw another 4 grand for kids to sleep through community college classes? no thanks
*throw* more money at it
anger used constructively can be used to get our intrinsic needs that we all share with other life met
like yoda you speak
e-prime?
here's an analogy for you; PT's say that if you need knee surgery on one knee, you're better off - in the long run - to get both done. why? because; first, you're most likely gonna need the other done later, and second, doing both at one time makes therapy easier. easier because the pain of therapy is so bad that if you just do one, you are less likely to do the other.
"seriously - we already pay for free education for every kid from kindergarten through high school. i say when you're 18 you're on your own .. you gotta figure it out at that point"
The example of Ireland shows us that Obama is right.
More Phony Myths
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: June 25, 2008
WASHINGTON
Karl Rove was impressed with Barack Obama when he first met him. But now he sees him as a “coolly arrogant” elitist.
This was Rove’s take on Obama to Republicans at the Capitol Hill Club Monday, according to Christianne Klein of ABC News:
“Even if you never met him, you know this guy. He’s the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by.”
Actually, that sounds more like W.
The cheap populism is really rich coming from Karl Rove. When was the last time he kicked back with a corncob pipe to watch professional wrestling?
Rove is trying to spin his myths, as he used to do with such devastating effect, but it won’t work this time. The absurd spectacle of rich white conservatives trying to paint Obama as a watercress sandwich with the crust cut off seems ugly and fake.
Obama can be aloof and dismissive at times, and he’s certainly self-regarding, carrying the aura of the Ivy faculty club. But isn’t that better than the aura of the country clubs that tried to keep out blacks? It’s ironic, and maybe inevitable, that the first African-American nominee comes across as a prince of privilege. He is, as Leon Wieseltier of The New Republic wrote, not the seed but the flower of the civil rights movement.
Unlike W., Obama doesn’t have a chip on his shoulder and he doesn’t make a lot of snarky remarks. He tries to stay on a positive keel and see things from the other person’s point of view.
He’s not Richie Rich, saved time and again by Daddy’s influence and Daddy’s friends, the one who got waved into Yale and Harvard and cushy business deals, who drank too much and snickered at the intellectuals and gave them snide nicknames.
Obama is the outsider who never really knew his dad and who grew up in modest circumstances, the kid who had to work hard to charm whites and build a life with blacks and step up to the smarty-pants set.
He might be smoking, but it would be at a cafe, hunched over a New York Times, an Atlantic magazine, his MacBook and some organic fruit-flavored tea, listening to Bob Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks” on his iPod.
Rove was doing a variation on the old William Buckley line: “I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston telephone book than by the 2,000 members of the Harvard faculty.”
Conservatives love playing this little game, acting as if the “elite” Democratic candidates are not in touch with people like themselves, even though the guys doing the attacking — like Rove, Limbaugh, O’Reilly and Hannity — are wealthy and cosseted.
Haven’t we had enough of this hypocritical comedy of people in the elite disowning their social status for political purposes? The Bushes had to move all the way to Texas from Greenwich to make their blue blood appear more red.
Everyone who ever became president was in the elite one way or another, including Andrew Jackson.
Rove and Co. are nervous because they see that Obama, in rejecting public financing, is not going to be a chump, like some past Democratic candidates.
For some of Obama’s critics, it’s a breathtaking bit of fungible principles, as though Gandhi suddenly donned a Dolce & Gabbana, or Dolce & Mahatma, loincloth.
But even as the Republicans limn him as John Kerry, as someone who is too haughty and too “foreign,” Obama is determined not to repeat what Kerry thinks was a big mistake: not having enough money to compete against the Republicans in 2004.
Charlie Black crassly argued in Fortune that a terrorist attack would “be a big advantage” for John McCain. And what’s scary is, Black is the smartest adviser McCain’s got.
It’s hard to believe that if Americans get attacked after all these years of getting strip-searched at the airport, they’re going to be filled with confidence at the performance of the Republicans on national security. And at least Obama wants to catch Osama and doesn’t think he’s getting his directions on war from “a higher Father.”
Rove’s mythmaking about Obama won’t fly. If he means that Obama has brains, what’s wrong with that? If he means that Obama is successful, what’s wrong with that? If he means that Obama has education and intellectual sophistication, what’s wrong with that?
Many of Obama’s traits are the traits that people in the population aspire to.
It looks as if Rove is on the verge of realizing his dream of creating a permanent position for the Republicans.
Unfortunately for him, it’s in the minority.
Mo' does it again!
yikes...did he really say that?! there's no way to burn anything cleanly, that's an oxymoron. on top of that, extraction of coal is very environmentally detrimental. especially mountaintop removal. coal is a dead end. i can't believe how out of touch these guys are about these kinds of things...or maybe that's just where the money's coming from.
hopefully it's a very big "IF", and he did allude to being against mountaintop removal mining. i'm not sure you can have it both ways. what he said about fining oil companies who sit on offshore sites, leaving them un-drilled to keep production down and costs up sounded pretty good, especially in light of this recent offshore nonsense going on now.
but it is ridiculous--4arch, i remember at least one of the later Democratic primary debates on CNN was sponsored by Clean Coal...what a load.
4arch, I sympathize with your view. My brother is in photovoltaics and Ive spent a fair amount of time armchair researching this stuff, and the more and more I learn about it the more and more I realize how fucked we are. I mean as it is now solar cells rack up a higher carbon footprint in fabrication than they save in the energy they produce in their lifetime. Wind is great, wave energy is great, but even if we fully built out our wind and wave belts youre only going to get 20-30% of our total energy needs. Nuclear has similar problems to solar, in that the carbon footprint of extraction and refinement of uranium has a hidden carbon cost. Not to mention Uranium is a diminishing resource as well.
The new clean coal test-beds are actually trying to reach 100% carbon retention by storing the carbon in mineral deposits beneath the plant rather than releasing it into the atmosphere. I fully understand even if we were able to achieve this all the same hidden costs are built into coal, extraction and processing, environmental damage etc, as affect nuclear, but its far cheaper, and if were storing a dangerous material in mineral beds Id rather it was carbon dioxide than nuclear waste.
So to me its an inevitable part of the solution. At some point we'll be making 70% efficient solar cells for pennies and we can scale out of all this rube-goldberg shit but for the next 30 years or so its going to be just a necessity of survival. At least obama is trying to make the big practical steps we can to get us closer.
on democracynow.org yesterday they said 30 gigawatts of wind power came online this year that would be like building 30 nuclear plants (witch would have long term disastrous and unstable toxic pollution)
Solar a close second
clean coal is a lie , MORATORIUM on ALL coal
Look I appreciate your zeal but if you really want to see anything done you guys are going to have got to get real. Im all for wind, Im all for geotherm and solar and national smart-grids and conservation but the question still remains where are you going to get the other 60% of the pie Thats a real problem. We can put in energy efficient appliances and light bulbs but we cant rebuild every building in the country LEED platinum in 20 years. We can run all our cars electric and hydrogen but that energy still needs to come from somewhere. This is a real problem and hippie dippy kill-the-corporations chants arent going make it magically go away. I want 70% solar cells just like everyone but that is a very vexing physics problem, and even if we were to dump 100 billion at it we might not get there for 20 years.
that 100 billion is only a fraction of the cost of the new nuclear they (Obama & McCain) want
The problem isnt the money, its the time line. You could throw 3 trillion at it and still there are unavoidable development and implementation times to deal with. We could throw a 100 billion at carbon capture, an already proven technology, and get energy returns in less than 5 years. We could do the same with new breeder reactors and get ourselves into a much better situation than where we are now. But because of the really complex microchemistry problems in photovoltaics the technologies that are proven now arent even getting a carbon neutral net energy gain over their unit lifetimes. We can get there, its the holy grail and brilliant minds are working on it, but if were talking 10 or 20 years before we are able to best coal and nuclear dollar for dollar, and another 10 years ramping up production to the point where the gross energy output is sustaining us youve still got a 30 year gap to fill.
ration
I know, and Im even being a bit pessimistic. We could ramp up light-rail in cities and high-speed between, move toward local agriculture, but I think for most americans if the dollar for dollar choice is between rationing food and oil and filling up salt-deposits with CO2 there isnt going to be much debate.
I believe it's possible that the energy industries are stonewalling the use of precipitators, for reasons of expense (?). Electrostatic precipitators are capable of cleaning smoke-stack release gasses, and have been around for at least 50 years. It may be comparable to the auto-industry resistance to air bags and (more recently, but ongoing) gas milage. "We can't do it; it adds too much to the cost of each unit."
Alternative energy will be driven by demand. The point of this is not that alternative energies need to be viable alternatives to oil consumption *immediately*, clearly, developing these things will take some time (and money investment as well).
But the point is: there are *already* alternatives to oil consumption for the consumer: driving less (which creates market pressure for car companies to increase the fuel efficiency of their cars), , taking existing public transit more (which increases demand for more public transit development), walking more (which shifts demand from sprawl towards more livable, pedestrian urbanism), buying more locally grown and manufactured goods (since, as oil prices increase, those costs are inevitably embedded in products), flying less and taking the train more (which produces more demand for development and technological modernization of rail systems), buying existing products which reduce energy consumption in homes (which creates an increasing market for those products like solar panels, energy efficient glazing and insulation, natural ventilation over hvac, makes these products and markets more profitable and leads to their growth).
Yes, this will take time, but the key is: demand will lead to market development... Markets respond to price. You see this everywhere. People trying to sell their gas guzzlers, people driving less, trying to move to more efficient commutes, etc... higher priced oil does, and will have an impact on the evolution of markets.
This is not new. This is the same thing that has happened in europe, the same thing that has happened in Japan. and it's the market forces which have lead to the development of more energy efficient, less oil dependent lifestyles and cultures than what we have here in America. Lets get real? Get real and bite the bullet, take the growing pains, and detox from oil addiction... People complain about supply, but lets get real: America MADE this energy crisis... It's a wake up call, but without it, if we socially anaestheticize people into continue with a self-destructive, wasteful, and inefficient way of life and development, we'll only reach a point of energy meltdown... we still have oil at present, but the only thing that can be done to avert an energy catastrophe is if people change their consumption patterns... This is not easy, and the thing that people will respond to more than anything else is: money... Unless prices rise, unless people feel a pain in their pocketbooks, they won't change. Better to develop renewable alternative energy sources (driven by demand) NOW, than wait it out until we are at the point of energy and economic meltdown... This is something that requires full investment now... We need to stop whining about oil supplies and instead curb our consumption... It's painful, but it's a necessary evil, medicine we desperately need...
Why is it then that we consume 1/4 of the world's oil, even though we occupy less than 1/20 of the world population? Realistically, the best way to solve the energy crisis is to reduce consumption, let the market reflect increasing demand for alternatives, which only drive and accelerate the development of these things... Within the global marketplace, our dependence and addiction to oil, which is *non-renewable* is a competitive disadvantge for us... We consume way more than other countries, and we pay for it... We need to change to compete with countries like China, who are already ahead in their mobilization to find energy alternatives (at least in terms of their investment in it)... Subsidizing and encouraging ongoing dependence on oil makes us weaker economically, forces our hand in foreign policy, and actually weaker militarily... Oil producing regions have us by the balls...
But I think Obama, in being independent of lobbyists with interests in oil, is better primed to do more in the interest of the people, will do more to develop alternative energy sources... McCain's commitment to the war for oil, his encouragement of much greater increase in domestic oil production (which by the way will take years to develop as well), suggests to me that he is not concerned with issues of climate change, and is short sited in terms of his energy policy. Inevitably, oil reserves *will* be depleted, and the rising prices are a result of growing demand globally, not just reductions in supply... Oil is on a decline, and unless we focus on alternative energy immediately and with full force, the problem is not going away, it is only getting worse as more and more other countries which are much more populous countries industrialize and demand outsstrips supply... Prices are going up whether or not we drill a few (by comparison small) oil reserves at the expensive of preserving our natural environment, and this oil will not even be consumed by us... Alot of this will simply be traded in a global marketplace in which oil demand is on the increase...
The truth is, the government only does so much... Investment is important, but alot of investment will be driven by market demand... It's 90% up to the people to produce the change, even if it's simply by being wise critical consumers that do the best thing for their own pocketbooks. Spend less on gas, and spend more on other things that you need... Why can't people just accept the fact that this is a demand issue, and not primarily a supply issue? I am optimistic that people are resourceful enough to turn things around... It's inevitable, people change consumption patterns and lifestyles because of market forces, it saves them money...
I'm repeating alot of this from another oil thread, but I think the thing that will kill us isn't paying $5 or $6 for gas, it's the social anaesthetics that force feed people bad consumption habits (against market forces) that will kill us...
Sorry for the long winded 2 cent rant...
Even clean coal technology will only be developed because of the market pressure from energy alternatives, and because of the rising costs of oil, and the rising environmental costs that cause people to demand cleaner alternatives...
Competition drives technological advance...
bRink nice rant
it appears from his comments that barack is okay with executing people. strike one there b.o.
Gosh O's made himself quite a lot less appealing to me this week.
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