Oily memes repeat, repeat, repeat!
Danny Lemieux on May 27 2011 at 5:11 am | Filed under: Energy, Semantics, Uncategorized
One lesson of advertising is that, no matter whether true or false, to make a message stick, one must repeat, repeat, repeat. This is how false messages become enshrined into the ideological orthodoxy of the Left and ripple out to the collective consciousness of the masses.
Now, there are many ways to deliberately distort a message. One commonly used tactic is to deliberate omit information that provides necessary context. Thus, the message may be true as it stands, but it misleads by what it does not say.
Here is an article that simultaneously illustrates how the Left establishes talking points for wide dissemination based on distorted information, while demolishing one particular such talking point that was found to reverberate repeatedly on this blog: the claim that the United States uses 25% of all world oil production but contains only 2% of the world’s oil reserves.
Yes, the U.S. has only 2% of the world’s “proven reserves”. However, as defined, “proven reserves” represents only a very small fraction to total reserves. When total reserves are factored in, U.S. petroleum holdings are likely to rival Saudi Arabia’s. Read it all – it really is very clearly presented
http://spectator.org/archives/2011/05/27/energy-myths-of-the-left
The article then goes on to demolish the argument that the U.S. uses a disproportionate amount of the world’s oil production.
Observe, however: the usual response of the Left when confronted with information that proves anathema to developed orthodoxy is to personally attack the source (shades of Galileo!) rather than distort the information (a classic Alinsky tactic). Orthodoxy must be protected at all costs!
And, rightly so. For once these tactics are exposed for what they are, the credibility of the Left is forever put into question and people go elsewhere for their information.
Whenever any information emanates from the Left, it should be viewed with great caution. Left-wing memes are like highly damaging computer viruses: easy to create and very laborious to detect and remove. Caveat emptor.
Email This Post To A Friend
119 Responses to “Oily memes repeat, repeat, repeat!”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
And never mind that our total energy reserves grow in pace with technology. The only thing we know for certain is that the information will be out-of-date by the time it filters through to our ever-so-wise and non-greedy policy makers.
kali: And never mind that our total energy reserves grow in pace with technology.
The rate of discovery of new oil fields has dropped over time—in spite of the dramatic technological advances.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GrowingGap.jpg
Probable global reverses (2P) are in the neighborhood of 800-1000 Gb, with annual consumption around 30 Gb. Global peak oil will probably occur around 2020 or so.
http://www.drmillslmu.com/peakoi16.jpg
Classic, Z.
To add intellectual heft to your position, you don’t contest the information provided in the post, but instead you link to a .jpg diagram at the blog site of a psychology professor at Loyola Maryknoll university, with no explanation or context to the information provided or why this professor has any unique perspective to offer that contributes to the discussion.
*whispers* It’s an authority Danny. Bow your head or down comes the thunder!
Zachriel: Probable global reverses (2P) are in the neighborhood of 800-1000 Gb, with annual consumption around 30 Gb. Global peak oil will probably occur around 2020 or so.
http://www.drmillslmu.com/peakoi16.jpg
Danny Lemieux: To add intellectual heft to your position, you don’t contest the information provided in the post, but instead you link to a .jpg diagram at the blog site of a psychology professor at Loyola Maryknoll university, with no explanation or context to the information provided or why this professor has any unique perspective to offer that contributes to the discussion.
Sorry. Let us explain. It’s called *data*.
Oil production has a known pattern, it rises rapidly, peaks, then declines. The chart show a large number of examples. Global oil production will likely follow a similar pattern.
The other chart, which concerns probably reserves not proven reserves, is also relevant. The fact is that the largest oil discoveries were in the middle of the twentieth century—despite the dramatic improvement in technology since then.
Z: Oil production has a known pattern, it rises rapidly, peaks, then declines. The chart show a large number of examples. Global oil production will likely follow a similar pattern.”
Reminds me of the data that people from Malthus to Paul Ehrlich and Lester Brown have been publishing for aeons regarding world food production and the coming collapse of society due to famine.
So a couple of things:
1. both the left and the right have ideologues that rely on repeating the lie in order to hide the truth. you haven’t proven that only the left does it, and I can point to lots of right wing leaders that employ the strategy effectively. Please stop the slander of everyone to the left of you…
2. The idea of using recoverable rather than proven reserves is a very important one, particularly given the technological advancements in exploiting reserves. The problem with the article you highlight–and this is an obvious flaw, which makes me wonder who is trying to hide the truth, the lefft or the right–is that you have to compare apples to apples. This means that you cannot take the 125B in recoverable reserves in the US and then proven reserves everywhere else to determine our share of exploitable reserves globally. Technology is quickly copied and exploited everywhere in the world, so you have to look at the US share of recoverable reserves versus similar recoverable reserves across the globe. On that basis, the 125B is about 3% of the total recoverable reserves in the world. This is actually smaller than the 3.5% share of proven global reserves. So it doesn’t really help make the point that conservatives want to make: that we can “drill, baby, drill” our way to domestic energy independence or, at least, lower oil prices. For a chart that shows th difference that your cited article wants to highlight, please check out: http://www.radford.edu/wkovarik/oil/oilcharts.html. You will see that South and Central America has 1-4 TRILLION in reserves ( I took the middle of the range, by the way).
Danny Lemieux: Reminds me of the data that people from Malthus to Paul Ehrlich and Lester Brown have been publishing for aeons regarding world food production and the coming collapse of society due to famine.
That’s why we pointed you to data.
You do understand the concept of a fire alarm? Global food supplies are under stress, and will probably continue to be under stress going forward. However, population is stabilizing, so humanity may yet achieve sustainability without a crash.
I’d like to add to my prior post:
3. There is no doubt that the US consumption of energy mirrors its share of GDP. Most liberals I know would agree with that. The article cited compares the US to China, which is favorable, but not to Germany or Japan, which is unfavorable. Why? We should continue to increase efficiency, and we should benchmark ourselves against other countries with similar levels of economic development, mix of manufacturing and services, age of plants, etc. China has subsidized energy prices, large state-run operations that are highly inefficient, and a big skew toward manufacturing. Comparing us to China is like comparing our political system to Iran or Angola rather than Australia and Britain. Very dishonest analysis going on there…
My point in rebutting the misinformation on the right is critical. The right makes up loads of stuff that leads to bad policy decisions. Right now, I am watching on CNBC a discussion on how the 10-year and 30-year Treasuries are at a yearly low, and the CDS instruments–insurance premia on these two bonds–are also at lows. There is no way that you can argue that the US is headed to a Greece like situation in the near or even medium term based upon this information, but for political reasons, the right continues to not merely say that we need to fix our budget deficit (we do) but that we need to do it immediately and despite a very weak economic recovery, which is completely wrong, as three independent economists and market commentators on CNBC just got done saying. The right wing is at least as fact challenged as the left, in my personal experience. This debate over debt levels, as well as this misleading article about US oil reserves (proven or recoverable) are perfect examples of the dishonesty in a debate–ironically coming from people who claim that the other side has the monopoly on such dishonesty. What nonsense.
ABC: This means that you cannot take the 125B in recoverable reserves in the US and then proven reserves everywhere else to determine our share of exploitable reserves globally.
Which gets to the point of many of your previous posts, ABC. THE WORLD IS NOT RUNNING OUT OF OIL. Far from it. There was nothing misleading in the article, unless you want to dispute the specific numbers provided. The article addressed the discrepency of one particular meme – that the U.S. contains only 2% of the world’s available oil, as implied by the term “proven reserves”.
With regard to the current treasury rates – my sources tell me that we are not going to see significant interest rate hikes until after June, when QE-2 comes to an end and the U.S. has to go outside of its borders to finance our debt. The credit agencies have already given warning signals. Personally, I’m waiting until September to see what happens before drawing any conclusions.
If and when our credit rating crashes and forces up interest rates, it is likely to happen very quickly.
I agree with you that the “right” also has its memes, btw, and I appreciate having them pointed out to me.
Danny, in order to appease their Arab oil tycoons and SA pals, the bureaucrats and Leftists of the world will make the world run out of oil.
I think you know why and have seen some of their plans to that effect.
However, population is stabilizing
Another one of those totalitarian dreams, or rather nightmares, at work.
> Global peak oil will probably occur around 2020 or so.
Predictions of “peak oil” have been notoriously wrong for decades. There’s reason to believe they’ll continue to be wrong.
Innovation, technology, and discoveries have a way of making such arguments irrelevant. Thirty years ago, did anyone envision Alberta’s thriving oil producing sector, based on shale-extraction echnology? Also, oil, natural gas and coal will not always occupy the same space in energy policies that they do today.
I’ve said before (ad nauseum
that I consider nuclear fusion technology the huge game-changer, on a scale of importance matching or exceeding the importance of our mastery of electricity itself. If we succeed in mastering nuclear fusion technology, it would cause a complete revolution in human affairs. It’s on a scale rivaled only by the invention of agriculture and the use of electricity. The (relative) problem of energy scarcity, and the costs associated with convertingand delivering that energy for use – those problems could decline even to insignificance. What a completely altered, transformed world that would be.
With mastery of fusion, the use of oil, gas and coal would rather quickly recede to niche technologies. I don’t know when we get there, but I’m confident in our ingenuity. No scientific breakthroughs yet, though: The problems to this point have been intractable.
Danny:
“Which gets to the point of many of your previous posts, ABC. THE WORLD IS NOT RUNNING OUT OF OIL. Far from it.”
I have clearly stated on two occasions my assertion that the world is not running out of oil, but that the world is running out of cheap oil, which your article and much other reliable data clearly shows. Most liberals, as I’ve previusly said, that I know share my view.
The false meme is the one on the right that claims that we can have energy independence–either a captive supply or so much supply that we can avoid high prices wreaked upon us by foreigners–by exploiting our own domestic resources. This assumes that we have a share of oil that is much larger than we have but which would be necessary for this purpose. The article focuses on recoverable reserves, and even on this basis, the US reserves are too low to influence the price of oil or meet our domestic needs.
“ There was nothing misleading in the article, unless you want to dispute the specific numbers provided. The article addressed the discrepency of one particular meme – that the U.S. contains only 2% of the world’s available oil, as implied by the term “proven reserves”.”
It is totally misleading to adjust the numerator but not the denominator in the comparison. You must do both, and on that basis, the US share actually drops a little (3.5% to 3%). So it is totally misrepresenting reality with bad accounting. But maybe Enron and Worldcom’s public filings were not misleading either….
“With regard to the current treasury rates – my sources tell me that we are not going to see significant interest rate hikes until after June, when QE-2 comes to an end and the U.S. has to go outside of its borders to finance our debt. The credit agencies have already given warning signals. Personally, I’m waiting until September to see what happens before drawing any conclusions….If and when our credit rating crashes and forces up interest rates, it is likely to happen very quickly. ”
Glad you have “sources.” Unnamed. Nice. That is also dishonest or at least highly uncompelling. My plumber thinks he knows where the markets are going also, but I’d never quote him. Unless your source already owns an island, he or she likely knows far less than the market, which is the best predictor of short-term risks and trends. I agree that the budget should be addressed, but it is not a short-term risk that right-wing politicians argue that it is. And given the shaky economic recovery, there are good reasons to phase it in gently over time, starting with people whose consumption will be least impacted. This is the opposite of the proposals being called for by the GOP, by the way. So you can understand why I found the discussion on market-minded CNBC so interesting, as opposed to Nial Ferguson’s (the Harvard professor that the right loves) two plus years of wolf-crying about issues he isn’t an expert on. Funny that. THe right pays attention to a Harvard professor who is not an expert in what he is saying, and who is standing against the market, but the right believes the Harvard guy. Wow. Is that an example of a “faith-based initiative”??
Charles: “I agree with you that the “right” also has its memes, btw, and I appreciate having them pointed out to me.”
Happy to do so, and I expect the same in return. Please spread the word amongst the many other bloggers here, who maybe don’t agree with our shared sentiment…
Mike, fusion technology is very difficult. We’ll master solar before fusion, in my opinion. Also, Gates’ investment in alternative fission designs is also very promising, and likely (I am told) to come before either fusion or serious solar.
Charles: “I agree with you that the “right” also has its memes, btw, and I appreciate having them pointed out to me.”
Uh, perfesser, that was Danny. But I do accept the compliment that you’ve got “Charles on your mind.” I’m blushing!
Martel, why do you think A through Z here both often misattribute quotes to people they never originated from? Once or twice may fall into the category of basic and normal human error but they do this more than rarely though less than common.
It’s almost as if they are quoting not to respond, for that would take critical reading skills and labor, but to have a convenient placeholder while they lambaste the “target” imagined in their mind. Btw, Danny, why does spellcheck say lambaste must have a last e even though it is never pronounced? Lambastaeeer? Would be more what it sounds like with a pronounced e-)a.
Let’s just say my “unnamed” sources are family members in very influential positions in international government, financial and banking sectors. I don’t disclose their names because of their privacy considerations. If they wish to comment publicly on their positions, I am sure they will.
ABC – Niall Ferguson is not a conservative (he was an Obama supporter, I believe). However, he is a person not afraid to stand out from the herd by taking controversial positions and occasionally even backing away from previously held positions. We respect that.
It’s for the same reason that I can absolutely despise the New York Times as an information source while enjoy reading the British Guardian, which is decidedly left of the NYT.
Danny uses other people’s source as just that, sources of information not as authorities to take orders from. The one that orders the information and data into comprehensible conclusions is the mind of Danny, not the authority of idiots and retards out in the world and not right here speaking for themselves.
For one thing, can corrupt idiots be relied upon to speak anything relating to common sense?
Mike Devx: Predictions of “peak” have been notoriously wrong for decades. There’s reason to believe they’ll continue to be wrong.
More often right than wrong, as per the data we provided on this. In particular, look at the rate of newly discovered fields. It does not account for shale, or alternative energy sources.
Mike Devx: Also, oil, natural gas and coal will not always occupy the same space in energy policies that they do today.
That’s a different issue. There should be time for conversion as oil becomes increasingly expensive.
Mike Devx: If we succeed in mastering nuclear fusion technology, it would cause a complete revolution in human affairs.
Yes. Of course, that will probably require significant government investment, that is, the people as a whole deciding to gamble on a particular technology, with an uncertain payoff at some uncertain time in the future. Not to mention all the important scientific groundwork it will required, much of which is funded by government.
(the Harvard professor that the right loves)
Didn’t A here once contend that Obama’s Harvard performance and graduation, without evidence or fact to back it up, was enough to know that Obama was an expert leader and of Presidential quality?
So how come A contradicts herself by claiming that a Harvard professor (not just graduate) is unable to an expert in such hoi polloi hobbies as basic economy?
Danny, I expect higher interest rates at some point as well, but not for the same reasons. I just expect mean reversion, which operates like gravity in the markets. We are well below long-term trend, which cannot be sustained indefinitely. But the panic-like atmosphere around the budget is driven by politics, not economics, as even your well-placed sources might acknowledge. This is useful if it starts the longer term process of correcting budgetary excesses, but it can be a negative if it merely undermines the credibility of those crying wolf currently.
Which reminds me, if you have read his materials, you’d know that Niall Ferguson is a conservative. He has never been a supporter of Obama, to my knowledge, and he has attacked the health care reforms, his handling of the Arab Spring and the economic crisis (e.g., TARP, stimulus, etc.). His views on the budget line up with Ryan. The problem is that he is a historian, not an economist or foreign policy expert, so his opinions extend beyond the limit of his expertise. Conservatives, such as many of my right-wing friends, frequently cite him, so I must point out when he is clearly wrong, as he’s been with interest rates for some time now.
I would like to provide a little perspective if I might. One of the things my company does is provide consulting to oil companies on technology matters. No one I know in the exploration and production business really talks about reserves in the fashion the sited article does. They talk about extractable amounts based upon the reservoirs under discussion.
There are 3 basic components to the discussion: is it economically feasible; is it politically feasible; is it technically feasible.
The first, economical, is rather obvious. Is the price of oil high enough such that the extraction is profitable? One of the aspects of fluctuation in proven reserves is the value of the oil.
The second, political feasibility, is a little more nebulous depending where the reservoir is. Building the infrastructure and investing the money required to bring a field online is expensive. Absent a strong adherence to the law some countries might have extractable oil and gas but are out of bounds due to uncertainty. The other side of that coin is that some reservoirs are out of bounds due to other poltical concerns. For example, Florida makes a heck of a lot more money off of tourism to it’s beaches than oil and gas would, so the risk of a spill outweighs the potential gains.
Finally, and most importantly, is it technically feasible? There are very large amounts of hydrocarbons that are simply un-extractable at this time, even at a higher price.
Allen: I would like to provide a little perspective if I might.
Thanks, Allen. It’s important to remember that most of the scientific and technical research oil companies do is empirical and fact-based.
Zachriel 21: Of course, that will probably require significant government investment, that is, the people as a whole deciding to gamble on a particular technology, with an uncertain payoff at some uncertain time in the future. Not to mention all the important scientific groundwork it will required, much of which is funded by government.
We agreed in most of #13 and #21, but we would disagree wildly on this concluding paragraph of yours. I’m sure it comes as no surprise that I see no need for government “investment” in the fusion program. Fund all such endeavors at the same level, and I’m relatively calm. But I would choose less government involvement – far less! – where you would choose more.
As a contributing example, I’ll cite the recent statements of three heroic astronauts, who criticized Obama for “abandoning the space program”. I myself have little need for government involvement in space exploration, its magnificent human endeavors toward discovery *and* the exploitation of space resources. My message to the government: Just get the hell out of the way and stay there.
Mike Devx: I myself have little need for government involvement in space exploration, its magnificent human endeavors toward discovery *and* the exploitation of space resources.
You do realize that without government involvement, there probably wouldn’t have ever been a space program. There’s just no direct profit in it, even today, though there have been huge technological offshoots due to the challenges, solutions for which involved all levels of government and industry. Or for that matter, the Internet, which grew out of ARPANet. Or if you want to press the point, Columbus’s voyages.
Ooops – I should probably add the appropriate complexity in my belief: government regulation always has its proper place, emphasis on proper. And a nation always must be capable of protecting its interests, so there’s a proper role there as well, much as with piracy on the open seas.
To Zach, on your 27: I’ve already gone as far afield as I want to go from Book’s post. I’d love taking off on pages of discussion on these points – I’ve just spent more than an hour happily musing over the same points you raise, already, in fact. I suspect I’d enjoy it immensely. In the spirit of an earlier comment about digression pollution: But I don’t want to go there.
Whatever happened to letters of marque and reprisal? They are constitutional. Why not contract some vets and ballsy college kids to sail on over to Somalia and gun down pirates on the behalf of the United States? Perfectly legal and we let them collect a bounty and keep souvenirs.
Folks, I have a confession. I did not really know this in my gut until the last couple of days. A and Z believe that they are telling us things that we do not know. They do not really grasp, i.e. know in their guts, that most of us have heard their arguments, believed them, made them ourselves, and as David Horowitz says, “made them better.” We did not just fall off a turnip truck. We have not been brainwashed. We do not have senile dementia. Over time, little by little, in the face of personally experienced facts, we have rejected what they believe. They appear to be unable to wrap their heads around this. These “discussions” will continue until they give up or grow up.
I shall not comment on their postings. They will offer various silly comments on this one. I shall not comment on it. I am free at last!
Michael, you are a better man than I. Sometimes the folly is so egregious I just can’t resist.
But you may be on to something. Perhaps we can all fall silent and lure Z and abc into talking to [past] each other, which certainly would be a delight to watch. Imagine it: logorrhea versus morte main—kind of like Joan Rivers versus Noam Chomsky.
I can’t vouch for Danny Lemieux, though. I know the guy is having a hoot making abc bluster and fume. You’re right that giving in to that temptation is something we should hang our heads in shame over at Mass, but low-hanging fruit has always been man’s weak spot.
Michael writes:
“Folks, I have a confession. I did not really know this in my gut until the last couple of days. A and Z believe that they are telling us things that we do not know.”
Wrong. I believe that you know those facts but intentionally ignore them to preserve your narrative and ideology. Psychologists and behavioral economists call it confirmation bias.
” They do not really grasp, i.e. know in their guts, that most of us have heard their arguments, believed them, made them ourselves, and as David Horowitz says, “made them better.” We did not just fall off a turnip truck. We have not been brainwashed. We do not have senile dementia. Over time, little by little, in the face of personally experienced facts, we have rejected what they believe.”
Not belief. Knowledge. You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. The US share of reserves, however, measured–proven, recoverable, technically unavailable but in the reservoir, etc.–is an ascertainable fact. If you think it has to do with belief, then you are kidding yourself. if you think that you can adjust a numerator but not a denominator, and you are practicing correct accounting, then you are kidding yourself. Facts and logic matter. If you ignore them to preserve a false meme, then you are willfully confusing fact with opinion to preserve a false narrative. Confirmation bias.
“They appear to be unable to wrap their heads around this.”
Actually, I’ve read key pieces in th literature on confirmation bias, so I understand it. I also quoted George Bernard Shaw (one cannot disabuse someone with reason of a view they do not hold for rational reasons…), who also understood it intuitively.
“ These “discussions” will continue until they give up or grow up.”
Interesting. The people who choose not to confront reality is telling those that do confront reality to “grow up.”
“I shall not comment on their postings.”
Classic symptom of someone suffering from confirmation bias. Denial and unwillingness to face the error is how it can perpetuate itself, like all false belief.
“They will offer various silly comments on this one.”
If theories well established in psychology and economics are silly, then I guess you can use that word out of normal context. It’s hard to believe that all of those researchers are wrong–not to mention all th bright minds of the past that have observed or written about it, like Shaw, Thucydides, Dante, Socrates, Tolstoy, Bacon, Aquinas, Faulkner, Wason, Arrow, Klayman and Ha. But while you’re piling on the false beliefs, why stop with only a few? I’m sure you’re a more credible expert on the subject than a Nobel Prize-winning economist…
” I shall not comment on it.”
Another classic symptom. When confronted with overwhelming evidence on the otherside, then ignore it.
“I am free at last!”
Ignorance is not merely bliss, apparently. Or maybe free here means, free to propagate a bunch of false conspiracy theories, free to beleve what is easily demonstrably false, or free to engage in self-delusion…
Some may admire the “discipline” you show, but the reality is that most people show these weaknesses of reasoning most of the time. The real discipline is seen in the very few that can keep them out of their reasoning. But that small number of great thinkers, apparently, are doing what you find objectionable. The rest of us ought to strive to emulate them and embrace reality, rather than put our heads in the sand.
At least we now know that conservatves are at least as bad as the overly-PC liberals at hiding from inconvient facts. Thanks for the clear demonstration that the right’s “drill, baby, drill” is an empty rhetorical device that only works on people like Michael, who CHOOSE to ignore the facts about oil supply, demand and price.
I was unaware of the “critical theory” until this week, when I ran across it somewhere. This is what I found online:
http://www.answers.com/topic/critical-theory
What it _doesn’t_ offer, apparently, is solutions.
For more on confirmation and how it impacts the right as well as the left, you might check out the following economic papers that were published in Econ Journal Watch. It shows an astounding level of bias, not to mention economic ignorance, on all sides of the ideological spectrum. It also highlights the likely left-wing bias at most universities, the great need for better economics education in a general curriculum, and it offers some good suggestions on how parents should make sure that ideology on the left or the right doesn’t cloud the clear and uncontroversial economic knowledge that their kids need to know. Be sure to read both papers in order to get the whole picture…
http://knowledgeproblem.com/2011/05/18/economic-understanding-there%E2%80%99s-a-lot-of-confirmation-bias-out-there/
Suek, critical theory dominated the study of law and the social sciences in the 70s, 80s and early 90s. And Book likely saw this at law school. The movement–and it should be viewed as such, rather than merely a school of thought, led to a famous and highly controversial HLS article being written by a feminist professor there. The article was controversial given the large number of swear words, including f-bombs, that laced the piece. Now that Harvard has a female President, I have to say that I think such efforts were misguided and didn’t lead to greater equality amongst minority groups, including women in the law. More importantly, critical theory might have properly highlighted bias in more traditional analysis throughout the social sciences, but it often failed to offer an alternative grounded more firmly in reality. Rather, it replaced one set of false beliefs (women or minorities fare worse because they are inferior) to another set (all white men are racists). Having said all of this, the idea, which goes back to Marx, that the sources of wealth in society have huge influence on things like art, culture, worldviews, etc. is a powerful one that has stood the test of time. Not everything Marx wrote was wrong, actually.
Funny, that. ABC goes on about Mike Adams’ and other conservatives supposed confirmation bias while quibbling over numerators and denominators with regard to an article that was fundamentally about the fact that the U.S. has huge supplies of oil, while managing to totally evade that point.
I agree that confirmation bias is a real bias that affects all people. However, there is a related type of bias which involves drawing unwarranted conclusions or making leaps of logic from information that fit one’s expectations or “template”.
It was ABC (not so much Z) that was going on and on about how the U.S. contains an insignificant amount of oil resources that a) would never meet our domestic consumption needs and b) could not possibly have an effect on world oil prices. The points raised in the article cited provided a countervailing view.
Not everything Marx wrote was wrong, actually.
Ok, this should be interesting. Give us some examples, ABC…of more than the “even a stopped clock is right twice a day” nature.
> You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. The US share of reserves, however, measured–proven, recoverable, technically unavailable but in the reservoir, etc.–is an ascertainable fact.
That’s a true statement – but I think you should accept that underlying many of these “facts” are quite a few assumptions. There is always the problem of the “consensus of the moment”, which can be flawed, sometimes dramatically so.
As an example, there was a recent discussion of “species extinction rate”, which the scientific consensus had wrong by a factor of 2.3. This may be an extreme example, but the UTTR numbers in Book’s linked article (UTRR: undiscovered technically recoverable resources) give us approximately 18 years worth of oil at current usage rates. That’s not much! We worry a great deal about Social Security going belly-up in about that time frame… so what about running out of oil in that time frame? That’s not energy independence! (Or, call it oil-independence.)
So the facts are clear… aren’t they? We cannot “drill our way” to energy independence… can we? Some would say the “facts” are obvious.
But then you find out… oil shale is not included in any of these numbers. It’s considered only “potentially recoverable”, not “technically recoverable”. Allen in #24 makes a number of great points – much of this oil is *currently* not recoverable, as we lack the technology. But the U.S. has 2.175 trillion barrels of potentially recoverable oil, well over 2/3 of that in oil shale. (Again, those tricky estimates, by the way… is that number truly worthy of being called a fact? But you gotta go with the best number you have.) That’s 290 years worth of oil at current usage. Will we be able to develop the technology to get to it all (in a cost-effective manner)?
And there’s more. If current exploratory techniques work out – a big *if* – then it’s claimed that oil shale extraction costs will match “regular” oil production costs at $40 per barrel. Well, we’re *way* above that cost barrier right now: $100-$125 per barrel, depending. So it would clearly be economically feasible. But the $40/barrel threshold is pesky… It’s quite a claim, but is it a *fact*?
Then there’s the environment. ”Oil shale extraction technology is profoundly destructive!” went the argument, and from what I read, that used to be true. Then the new in-situ techniques removed that concern. Then the scientific “consensus of the moment” declared that the in-situ technique fracking (hydraulic fracturing) was ecologically destructive. It’s use was and I think still is banned. But the scientific “consensus of the moment” appears to be rapidly shifting, within just one year, that in fact, fracking is harmless. How could they have been so damned wrong? “Just the facts, please”?
How can you possibly set public policy (centralized planning) based on “the facts”? What about innovation? Innovation always occurs, but you never know when, and you never know if it’s going to be a game-changer or just a minor improvement. Good luck synthesizing innovation in your models as a fact. But you cannot, you must not, ignore it.
I am an optimist on technical innovation. How can you capture that in your analysis of oil production and usage, as a fact? I also believe we’ll replace oil energy with others – but when? If we can exploit our potential reserves (260 years’ worth at current usage, remember) , will we need to capture only 50 years’ worth of it? 100 years? Who knows?
So being an optimist on several fronts, I end up deciding, no, we are nowhere near to running out of oil, and yes, we could achieve energy/oil independence if we chose to.
Apparently Alinsky thought of other uses for “critical theory”, which were somewhat more frustrating to his opponents. You can imagine. I’ll look for more info.
Found this:
“In 1934 the Institute for Social Research relocated to the U.S., where it was instrumental in the development of “Critical Theory” as a means of “negating” Western culture. Critical Theory was a method that called for subjecting every traditional institution — the family, the schools, the churches, the criminal-justice system, the media, the economy, the political system — to a bombardment of unremitting, scathing criticism. The ultimate aim was to cause those institutions to collapse under the weight of this criticism, rendering them vulnerable to exploitation and transformation by the Marxists. In recent decades, Critical Theory has become the basis for the various “Studies” departments — Women’s Studies, Black Studies, Whiteness Studies, Chicano Studies — that now inhabit American colleges and universities.”
From:
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=524
Does it ring a bell?
Danny writes:
“Funny, that. ABC goes on about Mike Adams’ and other conservatives supposed confirmation bias while quibbling over numerators and denominators with regard to an article that was fundamentally about the fact that the U.S. has huge supplies of oil, while managing to totally evade that point.”
Please define huge supplies of oil in terms of:
1. amounts that are recoverable using existing technology and economic at currently projected prices
2. amounts exploitable in a year as a percentage of amount of domestic demand per year
3. #1 from the US as a percentage of similar reserves on a global basis
The problem is that you start with the straw man argument that liberals believe we are running out of oil. This is not the issue, since most liberals don’t believe this. The real issue is that conservatives falsely claim that we can produce all of our own oil and that we can shield ourselves from global prices. The idea that we can drill our way to oil independence is the false argument that you seek to support, but you haven’t provided the data, which 1-3 above would conclusively show, in order to make your case. I am not engaging in confirmation bias. I am stating the argument, and the required proof. If you decide to avoid showing that data, while attempting to declare victory without proof, then you ARE engaging in confirmation bias. You need facts to support your claim. You lack them. Put up or…well, you know.
“I agree that confirmation bias is a real bias that affects all people. However, there is a related type of bias which involves drawing unwarranted conclusions or making leaps of logic from information that fit one’s expectations or “template”…It was ABC (not so much Z) that was going on and on about how the U.S. contains an insignificant amount of oil resources that a) would never meet our domestic consumption needs and b) could not possibly have an effect on world oil prices. The points raised in the article cited provided a countervailing view.”
Not really. The word “insignificant” must be defined in context. If the US has billions, but the world represents trillions, then billions are not significant. Most people who work with numbers use 5% as the lower bound on significant, on an apples-to-apples basis (which your article failed to use), the US reserves fall below the 5% threshold on my measure, as well as your cited article’s author’s measure. Surely you see this. But you choose to ignore it. I no longer will need to rhetorically ask why, since we all know the reason, as you just acknowledged…
As for Marx, I just pointed out an area where his thinking has stood the test of time. The superstructure is heavily influenced by the underlying material structure (i.e., the means and owners of production). Many other parts of his writing have not stood the test of time, like the grave digger theory of capitalism.
ABC, like MikeD said…
Also, to attribute to Marx the observation that “Having said all of this, the idea, which goes back to Marx, that the sources of wealth in society have huge influence on things like art, culture, worldviews, etc. is a powerful one that has stood the test of time.” is a bit like attributing to Mao the observation that “many people like the taste of tea”. Please!
Suek…excellent link. It certainly helps us to understand some of the commentators on this blog.
I used to write the alumni newspaper for a Bay Area law school. One of my assignments was do a profile on a retiring law professor. Her story was interesting because only 20 years before she had been a secretary. Her job was at a major law firm, and the people there saw that the work interested her and encouraged her to study law.
She did, with a vengeance. Once she passed the bar, she quickly established a reputation as a good litigator and solid researcher, with a specialty in race-related cases. Eventually the law school I wrote for recruited her to teach about racial issues.
I started my interview with her after jumping into the shotgun seat of her car as she headed out on some vital errands. Dashing around San Francisco, sitting side by side, was a good way for both of us to relax and have a real conversation.
I asked her what, besides her own curiosity and high motivation, had the greatest influence on her career. She said critical race theory. I asked her some questions about it (I knew what it was but wanted to learn her take on it). I should mention that this woman was white.
She told me how the theory had opened her privileged white eyes and given her a sense of the enormity of racial injustice in the country—the usual overdone cant from that school of thought. Listening to her citing authorities and talking about social justice, I realized that I was talking to a very intelligent woman who was intellectually very timid. She could only see the world through the lens of critical race theory and not see venturing beyond it. It was her haven and her moat. Of course the fact that she had been held up as a great white and feminist hope—a twofer!—by the politically correct powers at the law school had to have been heady stuff.
Looking back, I think she was a lot like our own Helen Losse, a smart white woman who had been overwhelmed by critical race theory’s Marxist bilge before she’d had a chance to fully develop robust logical and critical thinking abilities. The beauty of the theory, just like the Come-to-O’Brien moment in 1984, was that even as it awakened knowledge of one’s theretofore undetected racism (hatred for Big Brother), it afforded repentance (“He loved Big Brother”) and propitiation: In 1984, it was the sudden shot to the back of the head. In Critical Race Theory World, the form was somewhat gentler: ”Hello, my name is Jane Doe and I am a white racist.”
Mike writes, first quoting me:
“You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. The US share of reserves, however, measured–proven, recoverable, technically unavailable but in the reservoir, etc.–is an ascertainable fact.
That’s a true statement – but I think you should accept that underlying many of these “facts” are quite a few assumptions. There is always the problem of the “consensus of the moment”, which can be flawed, sometimes dramatically so.”
Now we are getting somewhere. Good. I agree entirely with this. And when you are speaking about technical knowledge where the facts require judgments like that, I believe one has to rely on experts. Now, experts can disagree, but when an overwhelming number of them are on one side, you cannot simply waive away their assumptions because you don’t like the conclusions. People are fallible, but experts are on average more likely to be correct than non-experts, so you go with them not because they are guaranteed to be correct, but because they are much more likely to be right. This is why I take my sick kids to a doctor, not a plumber, and you likely do the same.
“As an example, there was a recent discussion of “species extinction rate”, which the scientific consensus had wrong by a factor of 2.3. This may be an extreme example, but the UTTR numbers in Book’s linked article (UTRR: undiscovered technically recoverable resources) give us approximately 18 years worth of oil at current usage rates. That’s not much! We worry a great deal about Social Security going belly-up in about that time frame… so what about running out of oil in that time frame? That’s not energy independence! (Or, call it oil-independence.)”
Good example. Many experts were “wrong” in that they didn’t foresee exactly when and how horizontal drilling technology, driven by advancements in super-alloys and robotics, along with fracking advancements, would lead to the ability to extract natural gas trapped in shale at the cost structures that exist today versus 5 years ago. And I am a big fan of technology and recognize that it moves not linearly but parabolically. The problem is that there are still lots of people who wrongly assume that certain problems can be solved faster than they can be. Reagan claimed we could develop SDI in 20 years, but 40 years later, we still lack the ability to deliver the system he called for. The same is true for a cure for HIV.
On the specifics of the article, the UTTR number doesn’t account for the economics of recovering all of it, so it ignores that some of that or maybe most of it will not be recovered by profit-seeking companies because it is better to buy the oil from Iraq. So there isn’t enough data supplied to support the notion that we have the 18 years of captive supply, and, as you acknowledge, this amount is not large. Hence, the idea of oil independence can never mean, in a capitalist system, a non-fungible supply of domestic oil. The other thing it doesn’t mean is insulation from price shocks, unless you can show that as the price of oil rises to higher and higher levels, then the US can put a meaningful supply of oil on the market to slow the price. Based on the data supplied by others, Canada and South America might have that ability, since they have disproportionate supplies, as a percentage of global supply, at higher and higher oil prices that come on line. The US lacks this. Based upon the data at hand, and using the assumptions on supply that experts in the industry use, it would seem that the Canadians and South Americans can use the mantra “drill, baby, drill” while we cannot.
“So the facts are clear… aren’t they? We cannot “drill our way” to energy independence… can we? Some would say the “facts” are obvious.”
Unless you supply data on what percentage of UTTR is exploitable at what assumed oil prices, then the facts supporting your case are not clear. No oil companies in the US would claim the UTTR supplies as assets on their balance sheet, as a consultant to the industry noted earlier. So your view is at odds with the industry, the markets, etc. Given that consensus, I would say that the facts, indeed, are obvious…with respect to oil.
“But then you find out… oil shale is not included in any of these numbers. It’s considered only “potentially recoverable”, not “technically recoverable”. Allen in #24 makes a number of great points – much of this oil is *currently* not recoverable, as we lack the technology. But the U.S. has 2.175 trillion barrels of potentially recoverable oil, well over 2/3 of that in oil shale. (Again, those tricky estimates, by the way… is that number truly worthy of being called a fact? But you gotta go with the best number you have.) That’s 290 years worth of oil at current usage. Will we be able to develop the technology to get to it all (in a cost-effective manner)?”
We didn’t just find that out. They have been working on that technology for decades. But you cannot assume a solution to the problem that doesn’t exist yet. Heck, i could say that we don’t need water, since we can invent a technology to replace water with some other molecule in our body. This is not a solution now, and may not be for many, many decades.
“And there’s more. If current exploratory techniques work out – a big *if* – then it’s claimed that oil shale extraction costs will match “regular” oil production costs at $40 per barrel. Well, we’re *way* above that cost barrier right now: $100-$125 per barrel, depending. So it would clearly be economically feasible. But the $40/barrel threshold is pesky… It’s quite a claim, but is it a *fact*?”
Oil prices assumed for long-term capex projects are never even close to current spot prices. The assumptions behind using $40 oil versus $110 have to do with an examination of the implied volatiity in the price of oil, the duration of time that the R&D and capex need to have a given expected price hold, and a whole host of other assumptions related to option valuation (e.g., interest rates, cost of carry, etc.). It is not a fact, but a prediction based upon facts, markets and laws/regulations assembled in a democracy. Decisionmaking under uncertainty. Hmm, maybe abc’s view of reality isn’t so far off afterall.
“Then there’s the environment. ”Oil shale extraction technology is profoundly destructive!” went the argument, and from what I read, that used to be true. Then the new in-situ techniques removed that concern. Then the scientific “consensus of the moment” declared that the in-situ technique fracking (hydraulic fracturing) was ecologically destructive. It’s use was and I think still is banned. But the scientific “consensus of the moment” appears to be rapidly shifting, within just one year, that in fact, fracking is harmless. How could they have been so damned wrong? “Just the facts, please”?”
If your point is that facts change, well yeah. That’s true. And there are environmentalists who used to fight nuclear power but now support it since they worry about AGW more than nuclear leaks. I never hear conservatives note that important point. Also, you make a false or at least unsupported claim that is at odds with the facts that I know to be true. You say fracking is harmless; however, fracking for natural gas exploration IS harming the supplies of ground water around major cities and population centers (e.g., Philadelphia). To the extent that the permitting for this has become tougher as a result, is that an example of irrational and crazed environmentalists, or is that proper behavior from rational people who don’t want carcinogenic benzene rings in their tap water?
“How can you possibly set public policy (centralized planning) based on “the facts”? What about innovation? Innovation always occurs, but you never know when, and you never know if it’s going to be a game-changer or just a minor improvement. Good luck synthesizing innovation in your models as a fact. But you cannot, you must not, ignore it.”
But isn’t that a different point? Innovation has the power to change facts, and when innovation changes facts, then we ought to respond. That is why it is important to keep an open mind and channel on such things. I could not agree more. But, if we can stick to the specifics of the oil shale example and the related issue of fracking, you haven’t established the facts you think you have. Oil shale stil has problems with the technology and issues of cost-effectiveness. Fracking does carry serious environmental side effects that cannot be ignored. You have not really addressed the latter at all, although you acknowledge the former. I also have a question: do you admit that the same technological innovations that have improved natural gas exploration also have improved our modelling techniques to solidify our understanding of the risks and costs of AGW?
“I am an optimist on technical innovation.”
So am I, but one has to remain in reality. Progress has been made, but hurdles remain. The companies that stand to make money on this, which are the same companies making money on other E&P techniques, are a better judge of where the state-of-the-art is than you or me, don’t you think??
“ How can you capture that in your analysis of oil production and usage, as a fact?”
Again, that facts change over time, means that you need to stay current. it does not mean that you should ignore facts. I know you are not saying this, but it kind of does…
“ I also believe we’ll replace oil energy with others – but when? If we can exploit our potential reserves (260 years’ worth at current usage, remember) , will we need to capture only 50 years’ worth of it? 100 years? Who knows?”
My point exactly. Don’t overassume technological progress on oil shale, just like one shouldn’t do it for solar, nuclear, etc. So facts do matter. Where the state of the technology is, is itself a fact.
“So being an optimist on several fronts, I end up deciding, no, we are nowhere near to running out of oil, and yes, we could achieve energy/oil independence if we chose to.”
A non-sequitur. For the umpteenth time, no one credibly believes that we are running out of oil, just cheap oil. Energy independence is not possible since we lack enough cheap oil to replace foreign oil, and because we lack enough oil to become a significant supplier at any oil price such that we can insulate the US from price shocks that would occur from the global setting of oil prices.
Danny, please enlighten me then. Who first proposed economic determinism, if not Marx? And why do you insinuate that I am a critical theorist?
And Danny, while we are throwing out charges of engaging in confirmation bias, which the critical theorists suffered from as much as they saw it in others, could you please throw out some facts and answers to my earlier questions? Otherwise, your argument falls apart. Are you in denial about this or are you trying to distract attention from this??
>>why do you insinuate that I am a critical theorist?>>
Maybe because you offer only reasons why we _can’t_ do things, and nothing to offer an alternative?
Concerning 39 and 44, I’m going to focus on just a part:
How do you approach the facts?
abc writes at several different spots in 44:
> People are fallible, but experts are on average more likely to be correct than non-experts
>And when you are speaking about technical knowledge where the facts require judgments like that, I believe one has to rely on experts.
> Many experts were “wrong” in that they didn’t foresee exactly when and how horizontal drilling technology
I’m not cherry-picking to prove specific points, but to argue the general theme.
The point is that the experts *do* get it wrong. And also that the current consensus can be wrong. And that there *is* debate, no matter how much you want to dismiss the dissenters.
The problem is with centralized planning – making all decisions via government fiat. The conservative argument is to let the people decide! In this case that would be those companies that want to exploit the oil. Let *them* decide which experts are “correct”. Conservatives believe in risk-reward. Let *them* take the risk of which experts are correct! Conservatives generally would agree: The government sets the basic set of regulations – sets the playing field – and then enforces them, otherwise gets out of the way and lets the market operate. All risk-reward behavior is done by the players, *not* by the government, not by the central planners deciding everything for everyone.
> But you cannot assume a solution to the problem that doesn’t exist yet.
> If your point is that facts change, well yeah.
> Innovation has the power to change facts, and when innovation changes facts, then we ought to respond.
> Again, that facts change over time, means that you need to stay current. it does not mean that you should ignore facts. I know you are not saying this, but it kind of does…
> “I am an optimist on technical innovation.” So am I, but one has to remain in reality.
> Don’t overassume technological progress on oil shale
You dismiss my approach because innovation can’t be quantified. You run the risk of “overassume”. Therefore one must “remain in reality”. You would respond only after the innovation has occurred. (“When innovation changes facts, we ought to respond.”)
To me it seems clear that your approach relies solely on “the facts” as they currently stand. You admit that innovation *will*occur, but you cannot account for it, so you ignore it.
Why is that any more defensible a position than mine? Your conclusions – especially as time extends, allowing more and more opportunity for innovations to occur – are nearly guaranteed to be invalid. Statistically you could even say it approaches certainty that your conclusions will be invalid.
Regardless of which of us is right or wrong, wouldn’t it make sense to let the risk-reward takers make their own decisions? Not the central planners. Get out of the way! They judge the risks and rewards. Taking the approach that public policy must control, and restrict, all aspects of the free market puts decision-making in the hands of the few, supposedly “the objective” elite. But they’ve got no skins in the game. They’ve got no risk-reward judgments to make. They can only take your position, or my position (or a position in between), and FORCE it on all of us.
Soon we’ll be hearing that Sarah Palin can see Russia from her new house in Scottsdale.
Suek, what the heck happened to Violence Studies? I could swear I took something like that in school…
Michael Adams, I don’t think they much care about what we are thinking much, since they have their own ideas of what we are doing or thinking. Check A’s response to you for details. After all, A is the one that doesn’t know who he is quoting because he says he might not bother to read the name on top of the quote when A asked Martel to provide his employment information after Martel had already claimed himself as an independent writer.
This sort of narcissism basically just keeps lecturing people not because narcissists care what those people are thinking, but because narcissists require other people as tools for self-satisfaction. You could have something psychopathic and narcissistic like Ayers. Or a barely functional narcissistic malignancy, like Obama. Or just a slight case of temper tantrums as seen in most of the Left.
Btw, in reply to Danny’s Original Post (OP), I would have to say that if the Left weren’t right about the US lacking enough oil reserves to be extracted to meet our needs, the Left would take measures to ensure that they become right. So if the US in 2000 could drill for energy independence, the Left will stall and prevent the proper infrastructure from being built, so that in 2010, when demand is higher and supply is lower, it literally becomes impossible for the US to drill its way to energy independence.
The reason why I find it easy to pick up on Leftist tricks is not because I once thought the same. I thought like a regular Marin Democrat, not a Leftist Communist commando and mass murderer. There’s a difference. That difference rests within tactics and strategy for achieving victory in war. They are at war with you, even if you don’t think you are at war with them.
Once I started studying the history of war and learning tactics and strategy, Leftist ruses became much easier to grasp.
After all, for most of Americans, they never even imagined the horror of the Left before 9/11. They couldn’t even imagine the horror of Islamic jihad. Then in 2008, still many more Americans couldn’t imagine the horror of Obama as President. And even today, there are still Americans that believe in the Obamanation, a nation run by Obama totalitarian dictators rather than the United States Constitution founded in America. But as time goes on, people more and more understand what the hell the Left is doing, because they are experiencing the suffering personally and seeing it first hand. They can no longer claim lack of interest, lack of talent, or lack of opportunity to comprehend the evil of the Left.
I saw the true nature of the Left in 2004. Latter than most, but much faster than those who had started earlier but took longer to reach a conclusion. After 9/11, people understand that Islam was the enemy more or less. After 2008, the formerly ignorant Americans of this nation now are starting to understand exactly why the Left is dangerous, evil, anti-American, and corrupt to boot. But many still think that this problem rests with Obama, not the Left entirely. Denial is wonderful for stress relief.
Most people don’t understand how to read body language, they don’t know how to detect lies to the point where they utter foolishness like torture doesn’t work because people can try to lie through it, nor do they understand the art of war to a sufficient scale to understand unconventional insurgency tactics or terror tactics.
So they never had the knowledge base to be able to observe Leftist travesties and think, “hey, there’s something wrong here, I need to investigate their history and their tactical options”. And they, the majority of ignorant Americans before and after 9/11, didn’t even have any interest in studying up on the Left. When they see politician lies, they don’t understand how that ties into body language. When they see Leftist failures at work, they don’t believe it was intentional. When they see casualty reports from the war front, they don’t stop to think about how perceptions can be manipulated utilizing propaganda. No interest, no talent, and no opportunity. That is what allows the Left to operate, for as long as they have, without any serious sanction or retaliation inside the United States of America, as they sought to destroy the US of A.
Education is important but not for the reasons the Left claims. It’s not because you need one to get into elite government and university positions. It’s not because without a formal education you are dumb and useless. It’s not because education is a good in itself. No, education is a tool you require to fight a WAR against a brutal, ruthless enemy without getting your arse handed to you in the first 10 seconds. There are many more tools you need to defeat the Left, of course, but education is one of the more basic foundations required. Ignorance is bliss after all. That’s because the ignorant have no conception of their responsibilities or of the consequences of the actions of evil people.
To fight a war you need a brain that can think, first and foremost. Forget about tactics or weapons when you can’t think straight. To hone the first and most important weapon in war, you must learn how to think and judge. That is what education provides in the form of historical experience, abstract or concrete knowledge, and logical puzzles to solve in safety. So that in the real world you don’t get yourself killed by the enemies of humanity by doing stupid things.
Allowing the Left to take over your state and federal education programs is like inviting in the enemy to see all your defense plans and strategic initiatives and secret codes, then tell him to have a good day as you provide him a plane ticket back home. Then you try to excuse your actions by saying, “but I didn’t know any better when I implemented his suggestions in our education system that trains our next generation of leaders and warriors”.
This may be a slow form of suicide but suicide it will be.
The Left believes that their leaders and their anointed elites should get all the benefits while the peons and the powerless peasant class take all the risks. That’s why you get people that come to this blog talking about whatever it is they are talking about, acting as if they doing some kind of benefit. Certainly they are, but they know it is only benefiting themselves and often pretend to believe that it is for everyone, when it isn’t.
The fruits of a mixed economy only goes towards Democrats and Leftists. They won’t allow you the right of conscience to decide. They won’t allow you the grace to live as you wish. They will make you suffer. And they will determine how you will die, when you will die, and what you will die for.
That is the nature of the Left.
>>So if the US in 2000 could drill for energy independence, the Left will stall and prevent the proper infrastructure from being built, so that in 2010, when demand is higher and supply is lower, it literally becomes impossible for the US to drill its way to energy independence.>>
I keep mentally replaying that ad that has a little girl being offered a bike. She says “yes”, naturally, and starts to ride it … but the man who gave it to her takes hold of the handlebars and says “Stop! you have to stay inside the white lines” (which form a rectangle around the bike, and effectively prevent her from riding the bike at all).
(You lost me on the “Violence Studies”, Y)
ABC…I defer to Mike Devx (also a Frenchy, judging from his name) because of his incisive deconstructions of your posts. There is no reason to repeat what he expresses so astutely.
However, let me add the following: I have a real life. I do not have time to address all the points and mis-directions you raise. Most of us on this blog are like this. Alinsky was very explicit in outlining the tactics you use: overwhelm the opposition with information so that they can not properly conduct their due diligence and respond. Bookworm is absolutely right in describing you as a mechanical tennis ball lobber.
Let me give you examples: in your prior responses, you completely (deliberately) missed the point of the article to which I linked in this post, which was that the U.S. has more-than adequate petroleum reserves (further supported by Mike Devx’s posts) and try to detour the discussion into semantics. In order to further confuse the issue, you introduce non sequiturs ranging from Marx’s economic postulates to Reagan’s SDI (again, based on false premises).
FYI – we Bookworm Room aficionados have been here a very long time and, in addition, around quite a few blocks in our time.. We are on to these tactics. Frankly, some of us are beginning to conclude that you are a Soros plant. What exactly is your profession, ABC, that gives you some much time and ready access to dreck to throw into the mix? J’accuse!
Ymarsakar: So if the US in 2000 could drill for energy independence, the Left will stall and prevent the proper infrastructure from being built, so that in 2010, when demand is higher and supply is lower, it literally becomes impossible for the US to drill its way to energy independence.
The U.S. has only a small percentage of the world’s total oil supplies. If there was sufficient oil capacity at a low enough production cost, there are enough countries with enough incentive to produce that oil. But, in fact, global production of conventional oil sources is nearing capacity, which is why there are oil shocks. In addition, nearly all of the largest conventional oil fields were found half a century ago, and new discoveries are not being discovered fast enough to keep up with demand. Meanwhile, Asia is catapulting into the modern age.
It is possible that higher cost oil can be developed, but much of it has significant environmental impacts, much of it will require new technologies, and sometimes the energy cost of production is nearly as high as the energy value produced. That’s without even discussing the associated costs of climate change.
Danny, in the I-Can’t-Believe-How-Small-a-World-It-Is department, I ran into Bookworm earlier today at the local Staples. We stood in the notebook aisle and caught up on some private gossip, including her account of an especially interesting case she’d been working on recently.
The conversation drifted to something she wrote about on this site a few weeks ago, which your comments above reminded me of. It was cases where attorneys who had weak arguments would attempt to overwhelm overworked and distracted judges by throwing a flurry of citations at them, sometimes numbering in the dozens. The idea was to get a judge thinking, “If there is so much law behind this attorney’s case, his argument must have some merit.”
Book said the tactic, which often involves throwing in tangential or downright misleading citations, forces opposing attorneys to refute them, one by one—a tedious and time-consuming task. What she said fits the template you’ve described, namely, the attempt by a petulant antagonist with way too much time on his hands to flood the room with logorhheic pronouncements and mini-dissertations.
I’ve think you’ve done a good job explaining why regular contributors and visitors here are not impressed by that so much as disgusted.
abc 44: Also, you make a false or at least unsupported claim that is at odds with the facts that I know to be true. You say fracking is harmless; however, fracking for natural gas exploration IS harming the supplies of ground water around major cities and population centers (e.g., Philadelphia). To the extent that the permitting for this has become tougher as a result, is that an example of irrational and crazed environmentalists, or is that proper behavior from rational people who don’t want carcinogenic benzene rings in their tap water?
I did recall reading about this a few weeks back investigating a similar Book post, though at the time I think it focused on New York, not Philly. Your comment here concerns a specific regulation, not the bigger argument(s).
First, is this a proper area for regulation? Sure. My conservatism leads me to think these regulations belong to the States, not the federal government. (So the involvement of the EPA in this, I don’t like, at all.)
As far as I can tell, there is no *proven* connection between natural gas fracking and the pollution that is of concern. There is only a general statement that there *might be* a connection. Abc, your statement indicates that the connection is proven. I never saw that but I’m willing to be corrected. If so, it’s a perfectly fine regulatory step by me. But if there is merely a *concern*, no I don’t think it’s proper State action, at all.
The State can still pass the law if they wish even in the absence of “scientific proof”, and it appears constitutional, but I would hope they would answer for it at the ballot box for overstepping their bounds. I hope one of the lessons of these last few decades is that we all as citizens will in fact resist the steady encroachment of government power.
This is different from the case where there was an industrial accident that caused spillage and neighborhood residents were evacuated tempoprarily, with the additional fear of accidental ground water contamination. Regulation concerning industrial accidents is similar – but it’s a different argument.
> is that proper behavior from rational people who don’t want carcinogenic benzene rings in their tap water?
Even we irrational people don’t want benzene rings in our tap water. But the causal connection was never proven (was it?). So everyone else outside of that neighborhood – everyone! – ought to have resisted their attempts to shut down the entire industry state-wide, in my opinion. As for the attempts to force the companies to disclose the composition of the chemical slue used in that form of fracking, I think that part is, in the regulation sense, fine.
Danny L: However, let me add the following: I have a real life. I do not have time to address all the points and mis-directions you raise. Most of us on this blog are like this.
Exactly right! This is a commentary section for interested people to read, and to join in. That’s it! Nothing more. It’s not a debate society with formal rules…
I’ve been “in” far more often than usual cuz I’m on break from work. I’d intended to relax only a week, but here it is three weeks, and I’m still lazing. Having a *lot* of fun and enjoying Book’s domain greatly, as usual. But things are piling up… got to get back to the full life soon.
By the way, Book, you’ve REALLY been a roll with great, thoughtful posts that invite much thought and discussion! How did you know that I’d be going on break just in time for your great posts!?!? Oh, that’s right… it’s not all about me. ;-)
Regarding fracking, here’s an interesting segment from Hot Air:
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/05/25/video-epa-administrator-confirms-no-fracking-water-contamination/
Mike Devx: As far as I can tell, there is no *proven* connection between natural gas fracking and the pollution that is of concern. There is only a general statement that there *might be* a connection. Abc, your statement indicates that the connection is proven. I never saw that but I’m willing to be corrected.
Osborn et al., Methane contaminatiaon of drinking water accompanying gas-well drilling and hydraulic fracturing, PNAS 2011.
Zach (and anyone else looking at Zach’s link in 59), I’m having trouble understanding some things in the study.
In Figure 3, what is the difference, for a data point, between an “Active Extraction Area” data point (circle) and a “Nonactive Extraction Area” data point? The paper doesn’t define those two terms.
Perhaps a more detailed question would clarify: Suppose there was an “Active” (circle) data point precisely on top of the “Nonactive” (triangle) data point at the distance=4250, Concentration=2 point. What would each of those two data points represent?
Mike Devx: In Figure 3, what is the difference, for a data point, between an “Active Extraction Area” data point (circle) and a “Nonactive Extraction Area” data point? The paper doesn’t define those two terms.
They define it in figure 1. ”
A
drinking-water well is classified as being in an active extraction area if a
gas well is within 1 km.” That should answer your second question.
Mike:
“I’m not cherry-picking to prove specific points, but to argue the general theme….The point is that the experts *do* get it wrong. And also that the current consensus can be wrong. And that there *is* debate, no matter how much you want to dismiss the dissenters….”
I am not dismissing dissenters. I am dismissing those who fail to dissent with facts, but ignore facts to make false statements. And while experts get it wrong, they are less likely to do so than non-experts. That is why I take my sick kids to doctors rather than plumbers and you do as well.
“The problem is with centralized planning – making all decisions via government fiat.”
Wow. You are jumping to centralized planning. Why? The EPA is centralized regulation, not planning, you do realize…
“The conservative argument is to let the people decide! In this case that would be those companies that want to exploit the oil. Let *them* decide which experts are “correct”. Conservatives believe in risk-reward. Let *them* take the risk of which experts are correct!”
Of course, and the EPA doesn’t do capital allocation decisions for industry. But you DO understand that two parties freely transacting in the marketplace CAN harm other innocent bystanders who have done nothing wrong, right? And therefore you need regulations to stop that harm. And if that harm goes over state borders, that regulatory body needs to be “centralized,” right? So what you malign as “centralized planning,” is actually rational regulatory policy.
“ Conservatives generally would agree: The government sets the basic set of regulations – sets the playing field – and then enforces them, otherwise gets out of the way and lets the market operate. All risk-reward behavior is done by the players, *not* by the government, not by the central planners deciding everything for everyone.”
So you are describing the EPA. That is how things work. What you claim is the reality is a false conservative narrative, that was last seen in the USSR…and continues in Cuba.
Mike:
“You dismiss my approach because innovation can’t be quantified. You run the risk of “overassume”. Therefore one must “remain in reality”. You would respond only after the innovation has occurred. (“When innovation changes facts, we ought to respond.”)”
Wrong. I count innovation, but only innovation that the facts suggest is realizable in the near term. Oil shale development doesn’t count, which is why the industry experts that you say we should defer to do not include the oil exploitable by oil shale technology in their reserves that the market puts a multiple on—even though they would earn their companies higher multiples for doing so. I’ll repeat: even though they will make more money by doing so, they don’t count the oil from the technology you describe, so by your own logic, your claim that oil shale technology should not be ignored simply fails.
“To me it seems clear that your approach relies solely on “the facts” as they currently stand. You admit that innovation *will*occur, but you cannot account for it, so you ignore it.”
Wrong. You want to count innovation that your arbiter of what should be counted (industry experts) are also ignoring. You want to count what cannot be counted to rescue the narrative that cannot be rescued.
Let’s remember the stakes here. Danny produced data that supposedly showed that we can get energy independence because we have all these reserves that are not being properly counted (even by your industry experts). If we did, then we’d have independence. I believe the implication is that we need to get the environmentalists and government out of the way, and our energy independence arrives. This is captured in the “drill, baby, drill” mantra. But here is the reality, the data supplied doesn’t account for the economics of drilling that oil, which is unfavorable for a big chunk of it. Danny and his article totally ignore this key point. Further, since oil is a globally traded commodity, even if you could force Exxon to drill for domestic, uneconomic supplies of oil—who is relying on the central planning now?—they would still want to sell it abroad if prices are higher than in the US, which means that oil shocks from non-US producers can still tank the US economy. To avoid this spike-the-oil-price-to-tank-the-US-economy risk (which we’ve seen in the 70s), you need to have enough oil to overwhelm the global market, but the US doesn’t have that kind of supply at any oil price. Danny and his article ignore this, and when I pointed it out to him—showing that the US is less than 5% of global oil reserves on any measure of the term—he accused me of propaganda. It’s not Alinsky. It’s math, accounting and economics.
Now, you are trying to show that we can get a lot more oil than what is even included in Danny’s data by relying on technologies that are not ready for primetime yet. This means that you want to create a new fiction to defend the old fiction. This is confirmation bias in its worst form. I know what you are doing, but it doesn’t work. Your own conditions create contradictions in your logic (e.g., we should rely on industry experts, but those experts say you are wrong…) that make your position untenable. And make Danny’s argument irretrievably lost.
“Why is that any more defensible a position than mine? Your conclusions – especially as time extends, allowing more and more opportunity for innovations to occur – are nearly guaranteed to be invalid. Statistically you could even say it approaches certainty that your conclusions will be invalid.”
This is dishonest, and you should know better. You cannot extend time forward and assume you know what it will hold. You are attacking my position at time zero and then looking into the future, assuming a desired outcome, and criticizing my position at time zero on that basis. This is like saying, I know that your house will not catch on fire in the next ten years, so you are a fool to purchase casualty insurance. Only a fool would listen to that nonsense. So why should I believe in your blind faith that in a given (and relevant) amount of time, technology will yield the desired results for oil shale? They’ve been working on the technology for decades, like Reagan’s SDI, and we’re still not ready for primetime. Do you have a crystal ball? Or are you simply playing games to win an argument unfairly? And people on this site claim that I am the propagandist…
“Regardless of which of us is right or wrong, wouldn’t it make sense to let the risk-reward takers make their own decisions? Not the central planners. Get out of the way!”
Not central planners, central regulators. They are necessary, as you appear to recognize.
“They judge the risks and rewards. Taking the approach that public policy must control, and restrict, all aspects of the free market puts decision-making in the hands of the few, supposedly “the objective” elite.”
Wrong. Companies judge risks and rewards to the company. The EPA adds on public risks and rewards (those pesky externalities again!) that companies are not incented to examine, but they don’t do capital allocation for companies, contrary to your false and repeated claims to the contrary.
“But they’ve got no skins in the game. They’ve got no risk-reward judgments to make.”
Wow. The truth comes out. You really don’t understand regulation. If the regulators have skin in the game, then they start to care about the private gains of the company rather than the public losses that come from the inherent reality that two private parties transacting can and often harm innocent bystanders that have done nothing wrong. When you align the regulators with the private parties, then they stop doing their job. This requires a much larger explanation, but for now, two words: “regulatory capture.”
“ They can only take your position, or my position (or a position in between), and FORCE it on all of us.”
In the case of externalities (i.e., what economists call those cases in which private parties harm innocent bystanders), even Friedman and Hayek, who held much faith in private markets, freedom, technology and Republicans, would say that the proper course of action is to FORCE those private parties to rectify the harm—either through prevention beforehand or remediation after the fact.
Mike again: “I did recall reading about this a few weeks back investigating a similar Book post, though at the time I think it focused on New York, not Philly. Your comment here concerns a specific regulation, not the bigger argument(s)…First, is this a proper area for regulation? Sure. My conservatism leads me to think these regulations belong to the States, not the federal government. (So the involvement of the EPA in this, I don’t like, at all.)”
But when the fracking in NY impacts people in PA, then the EPA should be involved. The framers noted the importance of central regulation to handle interstate issues, which is why we have a commerce clause. And the EPA is well within the framers’ vision when operating in this capacity, which is why its existence hasn’t been challenged on constitutional grounds.
“As far as I can tell, there is no *proven* connection between natural gas fracking and the pollution that is of concern. There is only a general statement that there *might be* a connection. Abc, your statement indicates that the connection is proven. I never saw that but I’m willing to be corrected. If so, it’s a perfectly fine regulatory step by me. But if there is merely a *concern*, no I don’t think it’s proper State action, at all.”
This is precious. You say we should rely on industry experts, but even as they are highlighting the risks, you say “as far as I can tell” there is no “proven” connection. Yes, and there is no proven connection between cigarette smoke and lung cancer…we had that lie for decades. How naïve do you think I am??
Here is the information, which Michelle Malkin at Hot Air (she is not an industry expert, so you would ignore her, I presume…) is ignoring, but hopefully, you are not:
http://solveclimatenews.com/content/maryland-will-sue-susquehanna-tributary-fracking-spill
http://solveclimatenews.com/news/20110510/flammable-methane-drinking-water-near-fracking-wells-study-finds
http://solveclimatenews.com/news/20100823/wyoming-survey-points-high-incidence-fracking-related-health-problems
http://solveclimatenews.com/news/20110222/can-michigan-avoid-fracking-pollution-problems-other-states
http://solveclimatenews.com/news/20100902/epa-results-show-contaminated-water-wyoming-fracking-zone
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/intelligent-energy/scientist-gas-industry-is-withholding-hydro-fracking-contamination-data/6179
Even pro-business groups are admitting that there are real costs and damage being done, which you apparently do not admit to:
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/03/fracking_concerns.html
And some conservatives even go far enough to admit that the costs are being understated:
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/a6e8f022-831b-11e0-85a4-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1NkajCXNZ
But the people who are incented to “drill, baby, drill,” like the shareholders in Chevron, regularly vote down proposals to supply the information that the EPA needs—not because they are bad people, but because “skin in the game” doesn’t lead to the great solutions that you say that they do:
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110525-714432.html
You do a lot of assuming in your thinking. You assume solutions should be included that even the people who’d be paid to include them do not. You assume that there is no problem, since you cannot tell if there is a connection—all the counter-evidence, including much from conservative observers that you presumably would trust, notwithstanding.
“The State can still pass the law if they wish even in the absence of “scientific proof”, and it appears constitutional, but I would hope they would answer for it at the ballot box for overstepping their bounds. I hope one of the lessons of these last few decades is that we all as citizens will in fact resist the steady encroachment of government power.”
I resist the steady encroachment of unlawful and unnecessary government power. Stopping hydrocarbons from entering my kitchen tap is not an example.
“This is different from the case where there was an industrial accident that caused spillage and neighborhood residents were evacuated tempoprarily, with the additional fear of accidental ground water contamination. Regulation concerning industrial accidents is similar – but it’s a different argument.”
So you are okay with the government in CA forcing the gas company to pay to replace homes that were incinerated when inadequate safety measures were invested in to avoid the huge gas explosion. But are you okay with the government using independent experts to conclude that the investments be forced upon the gas company ahead of time? You know, to avoid the scores of deaths that resulted unnecessarily? I wonder…
“Even we irrational people don’t want benzene rings in our tap water. But the causal connection was never proven (was it?).”
Lots of evidence says it was.
“So everyone else outside of that neighborhood – everyone! – ought to have resisted their attempts to shut down the entire industry state-wide, in my opinion.”
Wrong. Lots of people’s backyards are impacted, and they have a right to defend their backyards from the drillers. They also have a right to be concerned about their neighbors’ backyards. I wonder why you consider those concerned citizens immoral, but have nothing to say for the people who live in Florida and who have no risk of benzene ending up in their tap, so they demand that the folks in Phillie and Pittsburgh take the risk so that they can get their houses cooled for less money? I wonder why people who challenge bad industry practices are immoral, while those that exploit other people’s backyards ought to do so without paying the full cost. It is a strange position that conservatives continually take.
“As for the attempts to force the companies to disclose the composition of the chemical slue used in that form of fracking, I think that part is, in the regulation sense, fine.”
Except that you want the experts figuring out whether the chemicals are safe to have a stake in Chevron but not the family whose kid develops cancer. Not good enough.
“This is a commentary section for interested people to read, and to join in. That’s it! Nothing more. It’s not a debate society with formal rules…”
So if your argument fails, you will continue to believe it is true anyway. Confirmation bias.
“I’ve been “in” far more often than usual cuz I’m on break from work. I’d intended to relax only a week, but here it is three weeks, and I’m still lazing. Having a *lot* of fun and enjoying Book’s domain greatly, as usual. But things are piling up… got to get back to the full life soon.”
What do you enjoy about having the fallacies of your beliefs exposed, and seeing you unable to defend them? I think you enjoy coming here to obtain confirmation that your beliefs are true, even when they are not. So you must not really enjoy my being here. But who else will explode the myths that are trafficked here? I know that you will irrationally hold fast to the false narrative, but now you have to suffer some cognitive dissonance as you do it. Although you and others will choose to ignore all of the facts raised here and combat that dissonance with ad hominems. People are so predictable…
Danny:
“I defer to Mike Devx (also a Frenchy, judging from his name) because of his incisive deconstructions of your posts. There is no reason to repeat what he expresses so astutely.”
Well, if he can argue your points better than you, that’s fine by me. But he hasn’t really done much better… There are loads of facts he systematically ignores as well.
“However, let me add the following: I have a real life. I do not have time to address all the points and mis-directions you raise. Most of us on this blog are like this. Alinsky was very explicit in outlining the tactics you use: overwhelm the opposition with information so that they can not properly conduct their due diligence and respond. Bookworm is absolutely right in describing you as a mechanical tennis ball lobber.”
How about just one? You claim that you don’t have time to rebut even one of my points, but you have time to load on a bunch of unrelated and unsupported claims. In the time it took you to respond with more fiction to defend the original fiction, you could have at least corrected the factual errors. Frankly, I would be embarrassed if I put out a claim that was premised on faulty logic and compared apples to oranges and adjusted the numerator but not the denominator. But you didn’t do this, so I had to. And then you respond to the corrections as though they are propaganda.
Let’s review, so we are all on the same page here. You and your article claim that we have enough oil for oil independence if only the government and the environmentalists would get out of the way to let us “drill, baby, drill.” But the resources your cite that will last 18 years include a bunch that are not economic, so you would have to use central planners to force Exxon or Chevron to exploit them, so it isn’t close to 18 years. That is hardly independence. More fundamentally, oil is a globally priced commodity, so you need to insulate yourself from oil price shocks to claim independence. But unless you have enough oil to overwhelm the market globally with supply, you cannot mitigate that risk and you cannot enjoy the independence. But the US is only 3-3.5% of the global supply under either the proven definition of reserves or the one that you propose that ignores prices, costs, etc. So you cannot move the global market with 3% of the oil. Now, your article tried to claim that the US has a lot more oil that environmentalists claim, but “a lot more oil” is meaningless. It ignores real economic (not activist) limits on its exploitation, and it ignores the fact that a lot more US oil in the numerator means a lot more oil (under the new method of counting reserves) in the denominator, which means in relative terms–which is the right way to look at it from a moving-the-price standpoint–the US doesn’t have much oil. Your logic fails. The facts you need you don’t supply, and when they are supplied (by me) they should that you and your article are wrong. So what have you proven? Nothing, other than the strawman argument that we are not running out of oil. But no one believed that to start. We are running out of cheap oil, and we will never be oil independent. “Drill, baby, drill” is jingoism that supports your false narrative. Nothihng more.
“Let me give you examples: in your prior responses, you completely (deliberately) missed the point of the article to which I linked in this post, which was that the U.S. has more-than adequate petroleum reserves (further supported by Mike Devx’s posts)”
More than adequate for what? Not independence in oil. Please say what you mean. Your logic is incoherent.
“…and try to detour the discussion into semantics.”
Not semantics. Facts, figures, proper (and consistent) definitions. You are grasping at straw now.
“ In order to further confuse the issue, you introduce non sequiturs ranging from Marx’s economic postulates to Reagan’s SDI (again, based on false premises). ”
Let’s get the facts straight. Others brought up marxist critical theory, not me. I merely picked up the thread. And since I didn’t start it, it was hardly a diversion. I asked for specific facts that you needed to make your point, and you ignored them, since, you know, you have a full life. Full of what, I am not certain, since you had time to follow-up the B.S. with more B.S., but not verifiable, quantifiable facts. Strange that you now point to someone else’s thread and misattribute it to me, as well as the false claim that i am resorting to distractions. I don’t need to. I have destroyed your argument. I don’t want to distract from this fact.
“FYI – we Bookworm Room aficionados have been here a very long time and, in addition, around quite a few blocks in our time…”
I gathered. And confirmation bias is much more prominent in the old than in the young.
“We are on to these tactics.”
Only here could facts and figures be called tactics.
“ Frankly, some of us are beginning to conclude that you are a Soros plant. What exactly is your profession, ABC, that gives you some much time and ready access to dreck to throw into the mix?”
Hardly. And if I were going to work for Soros, I’d invest for him rather than blog on sites like this. As for my profession, as I previously said, I’ll show you mine after you show me yours.
“ J’accuse!”
That’s a stretch don’t you think? My mother is a Zola scholar, so I am familiar with the Dreyfus Affair, and I think that you sully the incident by drawing parallels to this–especially when it is you that is hiding the ball on your flagrant hiding of the facts. If anyone should accuse, it would be me. But I am humble enough to not try to compare a horrific example of racism and anti-Semitism in France with a discussion in the blogosphere over US oil reserves. A little more perspective and a lot more factual evidence from you next time, okay?
Zachriel 59, 61:
Thanks, I don’t know how I missed the definition in my word search!
It certainly looks like a solid study. IT is odd that methane concentrations are so high within 1 km, yet no trace (or no unusually high trace?) of other chemicals were found. I don’t know why that would be the case, since there’s supposedly a “stew” of chemicals composing the injected fluids; or is the methane present in the ground already but released/spread due to the in situ technique itself?
Would have been nice to see how the samples were selected, to ensure against sampling bias. But at this point, just a minor quibble.
The conclusion, if the study is correct, is obvious: Don’t drill within 1 km of personal use wells. Outside of 1 km, the study leans to indicate that it is quite safe.
Wish I could cut and paste the info on concentrations of methane – a common problem with ANY well, it seems, causing recommendations for monitoring any well you use- concentrations > 28mg/L can actually lead to “flaming” effects. Here’s a link on those recommendations.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-p1E4Vd5N-Z0/TclW9QIn7pI/AAAAAAAABvY/S3508MQ5V1g/s1600/Screen+shot+2011-05-10+at+8.16.49+AM.png
I’d also add that there were a significant number of wells showing no unusual “methane migration” at all… indicating that other factors are also at work. Those other factors ought to be identified. If they’re significant, then they *might* invalidate the conclusion of groundwater contamination fears due to methane migration; or they might allow for drilling even within 1 km of such wells, if the other factors are present that cause there to be no methane migration.
> So you must not really enjoy my being here. But who else will explode the myths that are trafficked here?
I don’t mind your being here.
But stay on that hallowed mission of yours, whatever sort of mission you claim it to be.
abc says: I think you enjoy coming here to obtain confirmation that your beliefs are true, even when they are not. So you must not really enjoy my being here. But who else will explode the myths that are trafficked here? I know that you will irrationally hold fast to the false narrative, but now you have to suffer some cognitive dissonance as you do it.
Actually, OK, I’ll violate my own declaration of avoiding “digression regression” to say something more here.
abc, in the commentary back and forth here, I find engaging with you to be a profoundly unpleasant experience. For reasons having nothing to do with the quality of your argument itself – which I am not saying is consistently worthy either. It’s tiresome to be insulted and attacked. You are deadly serious at all times, and constantly evidence an incredibly large smug superiority in your interactions. You are grim beyond belief. When I engage in commentary with others it’s because I like to enjoy myself. There’s no way to do that with you. You tire me.
If people read that statement above of yours, they’d be well advised to view it as a declaration of war against us here. Perhaps all rules of propriety ought to be called off.
If leaving this comment reflects poorly on me, so be it.
Still, the questions remains: Why so much time on our antagonist’s hands? Is he unemployed? Between consulting gigs and bored?
Which leads to another question (and perhaps a Bookworm Room betting pool): In what other category will our resident pedant drop a name? We’ve already visited Economic Geniuses, summa-clad spouses, close connections with the Mandarins, and now, a parent who was a Zola scholar!
I say the next category will have to do with homosexual aardvarks. He will claim to know the world’s largest collector of such, whose behavior, by the way, helps nail the argument for same-sex marriage.
I’m less familiar with war than the veterans here. But more familiar than the average civilian.
but now you have to suffer some cognitive dissonance as you do it.
So basically Z and A are here to make us suffer. Leftists are here to make you suffer. Isn’t that what I said they were.
A mistakenly let out that it didn’t matter who he was talking to here, because he doesn’t bother to read the names of the stuff he quotes. He admitted it.
When you lose the view that the Left are just normal people who disagree or who are just misguided, then you will begin to understand their true nature. They enjoy this kind of stuff, never forget that.
(You lost me on the “Violence Studies”, Y)
It’s just what it appears. If there are studies on gender inequality and homosexuals and on minorities and on religious bigots, why aren’t there studies on violence? Why the discrimination?
When I engage in commentary with others it’s because I like to enjoy myself.
The Left likes to determine what people will or will not, are or are not allowed, to enjoy.
Like Z, he requires you to speak out against what he deems the morally bad. Like A, he requires your attention and time to respond to the narcissistic self.
Why this choice should be taken, they only offer selfish desires and destructive impulses as to why. They don’t care whether you want to do it or not. They don’t care whether it benefits you or not. In fact, the more it harms you, the better for the Left.
Like I said before, the Left will determine what you will do, when you will do, and how you will die doing it.
To be a Leftist, is to adhere to the Leftist Alliance’s goals and methods. To break from the Left, means self-destruction and persecution. If you see a person who uses Leftist methods and believes in Leftist goals, yet says he is not of the Left, then that’s a lying Leftist. If you see someone running from the Left’s goon squads, yet everyone says he believes what the Left believes, then you are seeing a fugitive, a defector in waiting.
I think you enjoy coming here to obtain confirmation that your beliefs are true, even when they are not. So you must not really enjoy my being here. But who else will explode the myths that are trafficked here? I know that you will irrationally hold fast to the false narrative,
Was I right or was I right?
That’s why you get people that come to this blog talking about whatever it is they are talking about, acting as if they [are] doing some kind of benefit [for us].
Don’t you feel honored, Mike, to have your “myths exploded”? By false narrative, A means basically a false consciousness. Consult critical race theory and Black Liberation Church theologies.
P.S.
When I say someone is a Leftist, I don’t mean they believe in all the same ideological talking points. To be a Leftist is to use the weapons of the Left to further one of the Left’s many causes. The Democrat blacks hate gays but love welfare and “goodies”. The Democrat whites loves tolerating gays and hate government controlling their retirement funds; basically they love patronizing gays and blacks. A Leftist isn’t someone who believes in all of those. You just have to be doing good works in achieving one goal out of the many. That will qualify you as a Leftist, barely.
Richard Johnson once wrote here that it looked like we were defining Leftism to be anything that had the Left involved, thus was a definition using a definition. I made the counter-point that most of the non-Leftists you will see, are decided for us by the Left themselves when the Left purges them, persecutes them, attacks them, or blacklists them. It is not so much a decision we make, as it is a decision made for us, by the Left.
That’s because to be a Leftist all you need to do is to utilize the methods of the Left and work to achieve one of the Left’s goals; that doesn’t mean you have full freedom of movement, thought, or action. If you do something in the open that looks to be supporting the enemy, us, or if you do something that criticizes, in the open, a foundational precept of the Left, then you are on warning. Like Juan Williams. And if you ignore that warning to toe the line, you will be expunged and excommunicated, with all the fire and brimstone that entails. Even the cannon fodder tools of the Left, in Marin California, will do this, without any orders from the Leftist hierarchy. They will do this because it is a social compact. So long as you do whatever the Left deems right, you won’t be considered a monster. Isn’t that right, Book. And Neo-Neocon will attest to much of the same.
Most of the Leftists that come here adhere to the Leftist policy of not speaking ill of other Leftists. Instead they praise Leftist sources or use Republican sources to attack Republican ideology. (Well, if Bush said there are no WMDs, then you as Republicans must obey, even though I as a Leftist believed Bush lied about there being any WMDs there to begin with: sample)
Many of the people that defected to our side here, which includes a substantial part of Bookworm Room’s readers, did so because they didn’t like their treatment on the Left. They didn’t like how others treated them, they didn’t like how they treated others, and they didn’t like to see Leftists mistreating the powerless. Dissatisfaction with the Leftist mass movement, eventually lead to their treason from the Left: defection. Andrew Klavan, Andrew Breitbart, and so on and so on forth, were all of this kind, one way or another.
There is no better anti-Communist than a former Communist. That still holds true for defectors.
If people read that statement above of yours, they’d be well advised to view it as a declaration of war against us here. Perhaps all rules of propriety ought to be called off.
I wouldn’t say you were wrong in that assessment, MD.
To Ymar, 69 and 70:
I agree completely, well said!
Me: If people read that statement above of yours, they’d be well advised to view it as a declaration of war against us here. Perhaps all rules of propriety ought to be called off.
Ymar: I wouldn’t say you were wrong in that assessment, MD.
It is just my opinion. If I thought abc were talking solely about me, I wouldn’t have stated that opinion.
Squiffy the Mirth Slayer
Chapter 26: Squiffy Meets Debbie Downer
(Editor’s Note: This is the latest chapter in the series “Squiffy the Mirth Slayer” introduced by Charles Martel in 2011 as a tribute to the incredibly popular “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” TV series.
In this installment, Squiffy, despite being on a first-name basis with the engineers who designed the Airbus, is stranded on a Pacific atoll 1,000 miles from Tahiti after the aircraft goes down from a mysterious explosive decompression. Fortunately, he and the other sole survivor, Debbie Downer, find shelter on a small island.)
Squiffy (rubbing his head where a coconut has just dropped on it): “Well, my dear, it appears that we have survived this tragedy. My name is Squiffy and I am a Harvard man.”
Deb: “My name is Debb—”
Squiffy: “Class of ’89. A perfectly swell group. Most of us have gone on to work in the Obama administration or for the Chinese.”
Deb: “That’s very nice. Bummer about those grades, though.”
Squiffy: “I beg your plebian pardon?”
Deb: “You know, grade inflation. Something like 91 percent of all grades now given at Harvard are A’s. Wow, talk about debasing the currency!”
Squiffy (draws himself up to his full, hopefully commanding height): “It may be, youngish lady, that Harvard simply attracts a cream of the crop so creamy that it cannot help but rise, and rise, and rise in a strange, law-of-physics-defying way.”
Deb: “Nah. It sounds more like Lake Wobegone to me. You know, all the kids are above average.” (Is quiet for a few seconds.) “Are we going to be rescued?”
Squiffy: “Well, as I often say to my friends on the Politburo in Beijing, ‘Fling fat hung chow.’”
Deb: “Huh?”
Squiffy: “It means ‘the noodle is cooked when it clings to the wall.’ It’s my way of reassuring you that since I know virtually everybody in the world who’s important, they will start missing me very soon. A navy or two should be on the way to rescue me in a matter of hours.”
Deb: “What if they decide to rescue me instead?”
Squiffy (begins laughing—his first laugh in 15 years—so hard that he curls into a fetal ball at the base of the island’s coconut tree). “That’s rich!”
Deb: “No, seriously. Don’t you understand what caused the decompression on the Airbus? It was you!”
Squiffy: “You jest! Why would I destroy a wonderful piece of engineering that I helped inspire?”
Deb: “Haven’t you ever noticed that all of the air in a given space begins to move toward you? =COUGH= =COUGH= Why, it’s even happening now.” =HACK=
Squiffy (pensive): “Come to think of it, you may be onto something. I remember every party and diplomatic reception I’ve ever been to has strangely petered out, as though the very air has been sucked out of the room.”
Deb (gasping for air): “That’s what happened to the plane—you sucked all the air out of it!”
Squiffy: “Is there no end to my powers?”
Deb (turning blue and beginning her death rattle) “Don’t you think those navies know that? =GASP= Do you really think =WHEEZE= they’ll run the risk of having you suck all the air out of billions of dollars of equipment and their highly trained men?”
Squiffy: “Harumph!”
Deb: dead
Squiffy (turns to the coconut tree): “Let’s discuss this island’s provable reserves of coconuts. I have it good account from Art Laffer that if you take x as the axis of production and y as. . .”
(To be continued)
Should I watch Season 1 of Buffy?
Mike writes:
“abc, in the commentary back and forth here, I find engaging with you to be a profoundly unpleasant experience. For reasons having nothing to do with the quality of your argument itself – which I am not saying is consistently worthy either. It’s tiresome to be insulted and attacked.”
This comment surprises me. I just went back and read the last dozen postings that I have commented on, and I really didn’t find any ad hominem arguments. I have been extremely harsh on your arguments, but I couldn’t find instances in which I attacked you personally.
Now, you did call out the following exchange:
abc: Given what you wrote previuosly, you’ll understand my skepticism of what you just wrote, especially since you are not a credentialled scientists with relevant expertise.
mike: Professor Snark engages in the usual endless series of putdowns. (As an enjoyable little exercise, go back above to abc’s post and count the putdowns. Oh, yeah, I forgot – conservatives don’t know how to count that high. Limited number of fingers and toes, you know.) I’ll give you a clue, abc: Your putdowns almost never affect me. You hit me with *exactly one* putdown at one point – and I’m never going to let you know which of the thousands of putdowns it was – that it took me almost 48 hours even to admit to myself that you’d managed to royally piss me off. You were so wrong in your perception of me that it was breathtaking – but finally I just considered the source. But you got me once! Congrats.
But here was the context. You had already admitted that you are not a scientist with expertise in the area under discussion, AGW. Further, you had just got done talking about your skepticism with credentialled scientists, since they are apparently irretrievably biased in order to receive government grants. I had pointed out that the fake scientists on the other side are paid much more and thus much more biased, so you resort to suggesting that I had engaged in ad hominems, when all I was doing was repeating what you had already said about yourself and about your skepticism in non-objective scientists. If that is a put down, then it is rather mild in comparison to the continual line of attack that others on this site (e.g., Y, Martell, suek, etc.) have leveled at me. Heck, some have even leveled ad hominems at Z, and he is much more disciplined about not returning fire than I am.
And I think that my most scathing comments, which perhaps did cross the line into the personal, were reserved for Danny, who has been much more willing to land ad hominems, as he has done from the start. So he and I have a different “intensity” of exchange, which I think is reflected above.
I do notice a pattern, however. When it is clear that you or one of the other conservatives has clearly lost the argument, you resort to fake outrage. I had predicted as much in my earlier posts.
To the extent that I have made consiliatory comments in prior exchanges with you, I think I have differentiated your civility with the lack of it amongst others. However, to the extent that my harsher comments are reserved for your arguments, rather than you personally, I hope you will draw a similar and equally important distinction. If I have seemed to confuse the two (i.e., attacking the person versus the argument), then I apologize for that. But as hard as I am on the arguments, I hope to remain equally forgiving on the people who show the same restraint, as I think you have done consistently.
“You are deadly serious at all times, and constantly evidence an incredibly large smug superiority in your interactions. You are grim beyond belief. When I engage in commentary with others it’s because I like to enjoy myself. There’s no way to do that with you. You tire me.”
Sorry to hear that. I guess I view the interchange as a war of ideas, and your position on this issue, as on others, keeps coming up short. Not because it is ideologically wrong, but because it is ideological in the first place. If you started with the facts and could match the other side, fact for fact, then you would be justified to believe what you believe. But if you start with a belief and then go find only the facts to support your case. And when the other counter-facts rebut your facts, you cannot supply additional facts, then you have lost. Your belief should change. if it doesn’t, then that is not rational. It is not me that is claiming superiority. it is the many facts that remain unrebutted that make my argument superior. And I too tire. i tire of the excuses and distractions that are thrown up to hide the fact that the facts that I have raised were left unrebutted. “Drill, baby, drill” is an empty, misleading bumper sticker and nothing more, given the facts that I have laid out, which you and others have completely failed to rebut. I am not smug about it at all. It is merely an observable fact that all can see. You assume to much about what I might think or feel when you impute smugness into it. I have beaten your argument and facts into the ground, but not you personally. That you have not rebutted it means that your argument was beaten, but not you personally. For me, it is about the facts and the truth that is revealed by them. Not the entertainment value of the exchange. Negotiation theory states that those who enjoy the process of negotiation often dislike its outcome, while those who hate the process, typically reach a more satisfactory outcome. And so it is here, in my view. The tougher the debate, the better the truth that emerges.
“If people read that statement above of yours, they’d be well advised to view it as a declaration of war against us here. Perhaps all rules of propriety ought to be called off….If leaving this comment reflects poorly on me, so be it.”
I’m not sure what part of my comments toward you are a declaration of war. If there is a war of ideas in these exchanges, then I would say that your side already lost, since you are not ignoring my unrebutted facts to focus on extraneous stuff. Others will no doubt come to your rescue, since they also want to avoid confronting the fact that the argument is irretrievably lost. But that is hardly a surprise. I’ve watched a bunch of liberals stick together in a similar herd to attack a conservative writing the truth. It happens often on the Huffington Post. If it happens here, that would be par for the course.
What would be outstanding would be to see a few counter-factuals that assail the points I’ve made. That would make me rethink the argument in a way that ideological generalization or ad hominem attacks (from Y, Martell, et. al.) or changing of the topic simply cannot.
Uh, perfesser, that’s Martel with one “l.”
Another person that doesn’t know what ad hominem means.
If I have seemed to confuse the two (i.e., attacking the person versus the argument), then I apologize for that.
That’s more due to the fact that A can’t keep in his head who the person he is addressing is. Given he considers it more important to consider the (conservative) idea than consider the source. Meaning, he really doesn’t remember whether it was Danny or Mike Devx he is arguing with. Thus the fact that A utilizes “high intensity” attacks against MD by “accident” would follow logically. Not assuming he knows any logic, of course.
Others will no doubt come to your rescue, since they also want to avoid confronting the fact that the argument is irretrievably lost.
I think you missed out on something. When people like Danny say that they are on to your tricks, what he means is essentially that you are no longer worth his time. That doesn’t mean you won any arguments or that your facts are even true. Just that because you are A, and A is claiming something, makes it suspect in a social sphere.
A does have the prerequisite of a good member of the Left in that he doesn’t realize what he is doing. That kind of cognitive dissonance may last long or even forever at this rate without a systematic shock. The Left has a term they use, false consciousness, which I believe to be a better fit for them than “misguided intentions”.
It happens often on the Huffington Post.
So he did come from the Huffington Post. Where, presumably, A made the mistake of speaking ill of Obama, and he was cast out.
> If I have seemed to confuse the two (i.e., attacking the person versus the argument), then I apologize for that. But as hard as I am on the arguments, I hope to remain equally forgiving on the people who show the same restraint, as I think you have done consistently.
Nicely and well said.
> I’m not sure what part of my comments toward you are a declaration of war.
Probably grandiose of me, especially in light of the rest of your comment. I better cut down on the grandiose i put in my coffee each morning.
Been racing.
I have two suggestions to abc– back off the stimulants and spend more time with your kids.
In spite of the reams of virtual paper abc has offered, chock full of facts, laced with opinion, I think Zachriel has succintly given the liberal argument against doing anything in #54.
The U.S. has only a small percentage of the world’s total oil supplies. If there was sufficient oil capacity at a low enough production cost, there are enough countries with enough incentive to produce that oil. But, in fact, global production of conventional oil sources is nearing capacity, which is why there are oil shocks. In addition, nearly all of the largest conventional oil fields were found half a century ago, and new discoveries are not being discovered fast enough to keep up with demand. Meanwhile, Asia is catapulting into the modern age. It is possible that higher cost oil can be developed, but much of it has significant environmental impacts, much of it will require new technologies, and sometimes the energy cost of production is nearly as high as the energy value produced. That’s without even discussing the associated costs of climate change. - Zachriel
Let me interpret. It doesn’t matter how much oil we may have, it will always be a percentage of the world’s oil, so we shouldn’t drill.
If oil is chap, there are other countries that can drill for oil cheaper than we can, so we shouldn’t drill.
But there must not be cheap oil left because there are oil shocks as the world consumption exceeds the worlds available supply- so we shouldn’t drill.
All the conventional (cheap, big?) were discovered a long time ago, so we shouldn’t drill.
Asia is advancing and is going to use increasing amounts of oil, so we shouldn’t drill.
The new sources of oil are going to hurt the environment, even if we have the technology to deal with it, since accidents happen, so we shouldn’t drill.
At some point the cost of developing the energy might cost as much as the energy supplied, so we shouldn’t drill.
Global warming is going to kill, so we shouldn’t drill.
The only difference between Zachriel’s and abc’s style is about 10,000 words. Their goal is the same– with one exception as far as I can tell.
At one time bookworm made light of a Harvard education and abc has been working double shifts to prove his education was worthy of the price. I’m willing to stipulate that abc learned his lessons well and as far as I can tell is more intelligent than another famous Harvard graduate.
For a very short time I enjoyed interacting with abc, though as his posts got longer, the joy turned to determination and then drudgery– and it wasn’t because I was overwhelmed by the facts, but by the sheer volume of his words. Good grief abc, ever heard that brevity is the sole of wit?
Anyway, I, personally, get it. Liberals don’t want to drill. Even if the EPA were rolled back to more sane levels of regulation and the government took a more favorable position to developing domestic energy (besides turning food into a really low energy source) it wouldn’t create more than a couple hundred thousand direct jobs– maybe a million or so when indrect industries are factored in, but they would all be good paying American jobs– and whatever oil or gas were produced here, would keep that much money in the country– and we can’t forever ignore our current account deficit.
I think, and this is my opinion, that it’s worth it. The price of oil will determine what is developed– but if $60 is the new $20 oil — now is the time to encourage increased domestic development. I personally would like to see $60 oil– with a robust world economy.
If I’m wrong we’ve created some American jobs and nothing else will change. But if you’re wrong and we avoid increasing domestic production, the effect will be severe– and it could be severe in the short term.
Did I mention the arguments haven’t changed in 40 years?
BrianE – “For a very short time I enjoyed interacting with abc, though as his posts got longer, the joy turned to determination and then drudgery and…Did I mention the arguments haven’t changed in 40 years?”
Yup!
The goal of Leftist Utopianism isn’t to change their arguments, but to change the world.
BrianE assumes a lot from a little data, from my parenting to my views on my education. It is his right, of course. But assuming too much almost always leads to false conclusions. As for the argument, I freely admit that Z summarized it better than I did. But the wrong conclusions have been drawn from that concise statement as well, as you have just highlighted. Half the statements you made are not exactly right. For example, it DOES matter how much oil we have, relative to the rest of the world. Oil is a global commodity with a global price, so you only drill the oil you have that you can earn a positive NPV on. In the US case, that will never be a large enough amount to be energy independent. Economics, not politics (including Pelosi or those crazy environmentalists), determines. Oh, and maybe Z has more degrees fro m Harvard than I do… You assume too much.
Off topic:
Ymarsakar: So basically Z and A are here to make us suffer.
Can’t speak for others, but Zachriel is here to encourage you to think.
Ymarsakar: What you need is to build an execution stand, take around 80% of the Leftists and bureaucrats in government, and execute them. That’ll solve the problem soon enough.
Ymarsakar: Like Z, he requires you to speak out against what he deems the morally bad.
There is no reason for them to speak up, as they are not Leftists.
BrianE: Let me interpret. It doesn’t matter how much oil we may have, it will always be a percentage of the world’s oil, so we shouldn’t drill… so we shouldn’t drill… so we shouldn’t drill… so we shouldn’t drill… so we shouldn’t drill… so we shouldn’t drill.
That is not our position. Rather, it is that drilling in the U.S. will not eliminate the problem of impending oil shortages and associated shocks in the price of oil.
BrianE: I personally would like to see $60 oil– with a robust world economy.
So do the Saudis.
“Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talai, speaking on CNN, said a lower oil price in the international market would slow wealthy western nations from shifting to non-fossil sources of energy. He admitted that very high oil prices would drive the U.S. and Europe to find alternative and renewable sources of energy.”
http://tinyurl.com/3fu5zta
Z, I saw Fareed’s interview as well. But the exact quote was that the Saudi government wants to see $70-80 oil, not $60 oil. At that price, the Saudi’s believe they won’t see other nations race to develop competing alternatives (which could include non-fossil fuels, but would not be limited to those).
.
And I should say that I also am trying to encourage people to think for themselves.
>>Been racing.>>
Racing what/how? and… how’d you do??
You’re right, abc, I know nothing about your parenting skills, and was trying to make light of your lengthy posts.
Yes, I do agree the Saudis have a range of oil prices where the pig is bled without killing it. The world’s economies can probably sustain slow growth with $70 oil (and that represents some level of inflation as much as scarcity, IMO). Others may be arguing that we can become energy independent with domestic supplies. I’m not that optimistic, but I believe a conservative estimate of increased production based on proven reserves would be 25% of current consumption. That is enough to affect prices, IMO.
In my mind, we don’t want prices to collapse, but to reduce it back to economically sustainable levels. I have no problem with transitioning to LNG for mobile power (years ago I had a friend running propane in his service trucks and was happy with the results, given the lower energy content of propane). That would actually be a relatively easy conversion– if the anti-progressives weren’t so irrationally bound to pushing us back to the dark ages pre-hydrocarbons.
I don’t know what the magic price that the world’s economy can absorb and produce the needed 3-4% real growth. I do know that the only hope of us recovering from the looming SS cliff is robust growth– we can’t tax or reduce spending enough to solve that one. Growth– and growth that exploits natural resources.
Wind is a fool’s errand. You’re up against economy of scale. Solar- solar has potential, but how are those projects going in California? Stopped dead in their tracks by anti-progressives.
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/04/28/28greenwire-us-halts-mojave-desert-solar-project-over-spec-55255.html
Nuclear is the only known source that could provide reasonably priced energy with controllable environmental impacts– but the anti-progressives will do exactly with Obama and Reid did to Yucca Mountain. For years, Nevada took billions of dollars to develop the site, then in one fell swoop, set back an essential element of safe nuclear storage 20 years.
That is not our position. Rather, it is that drilling in the U.S. will not eliminate the problem of impending oil shortages and associated shocks in the price of oil.- Zachriel
Doing nothing will guarantee shortages.
Suek, I autocross- which is a form of low-speed precision driving over short courses. I switched from a stock Corvette to a V8 powered Fiero this year, which is a blast to drive, but requires a different driving style.
BrianE, you raise a good point about the increasingly reactionary nature of the so-called progressives who have been clamoring for solar and wind, only to protest against it when it becomes a reality.
That’s one of the great ironies of our age: the people most likely to oppose material progress or freedom of thought are the people most likely to style themselves as advanced, tolerant people. I’m just not seeing it.
BrianE, any chance you could expand on the difference in driving style? Speaking as somebody totally unfamilar with that kind of racing, I would have thought all you need is a chassis, four wheels, a V8 and a fun-loving driver. Obviously there’s a lot more to it than that. I guess it’s like baseball—a casual look doesn’t really tell you the game’s incredible intricacies and calculations.
Z actually noticed that we aren’t Leftists or bureaucrats. Amazing bit of perception there, doc.
Most, if not all, of A’s conclusions agree with Z. Since Z came here first, the place was a bit mined out when A got here. The arguments were different, slightly, but it ended up in the same place as Z before. That’s why you didn’t get many people addressing all your points, A.
Normally there is automatic transmission and manual transmission. I assume no serious racing course utilizes automatic transmission. What this ends up as is each car has a different engine and each engine has different performance specs at each gear level. Manual transmission switches between gears depending on the needs of the time.
Higher acceleration and horsepower is achieved at the expense of lower top speed. Depending on the car’s engine output and its weight distribution and wind tunnel aspects, gears may perform dramatically different even though they’re technically in the same gear (1st gear).
I’m sure there are a couple of other things manual transmission utilizes that I am not aware of.
Thanks for the explanation, Ymar.
Z portrays himself as an angel of truth and enlightenment, come down upon us poor denizens of the world below, to spread his educated lectures and sayings.
I hate to burst that bubble, but that’s a con. I explained much of the context of my comments, not because I want Z to get anything, but because it further illuminates Z’s true nature to the greater viewership.
In case Z had assumed foolishly that it was so, I would also make the note that he isn’t the only one here that can play with copy and paste databases.
Let’s see what we can see, shall we, with full context in mind.
Ymar, concerning your #18′s discussion of actions in self-defense:
After finishing your comment, I remembered a story from a ways back. It made me wonder what your opinion would be about what this woman faced, as it relates to the law in her nation (Great Britain).-Mike Devx
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1242040/Myleene-Klass-warned-police-waving-illegal-kitchen-knife-intruders-garden.html
Ymar:
<B>Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling said: ‘This incident just shows why things are still very confused on this issue and why we need a change in the law.E</b>
No, no, no. What you need is to build an execution stand, take around 80% of the Leftists and bureaucrats in government, and execute them. That’ll solve the problem soon enough.
The are more criminals in Britain’s political class than there ever were on the streets raping and killing British citizens. Get your priorities straight.
My suggestion would be,
1. Never call the police.
2. Hire goons to find the thugs and break both their knee caps, first at a warning and a second time when they try to file lawsuits.
3. Get many guard dogs.
4. Cover up the lines of sight that can be used to observe your house, openings, windows, and property.
5. Get reinforced iron doors.
6. Move to a different country like Japan, Singapore, or America. Japan and Singapore’s police are based upon the centralized authority model, but they actually work and are efficient, more or less. In Singapore, theft is punished by cutting off the thief’s hands. That’s why you can leave your doors unlocked in Singapore. If you like living in a police state, sure.
Okay, I’m kidding on two. Well, kind of. It does work, since violent people tend to fear other violent people and you can pay them to solve your problems with enough money. And neither will go to the police, because. Violent people are the first ones to understand the efficacy and terror of violence, be assured of that. They may not be afraid of police or being in jail. They do fear their fellow crims. And in America, most citizens in armed counties are more dangerous than their violent criminal buddies in jail.
Here’s where things get interesting. You would think that given what Z hounded Martel on days later, that Z would have piped up and said something about this statement if he so vehemently disagreed with it. But guess what he actually wrote.
<B>Ymarsakar: What you need is to build an execution stand, take around 80% of the Leftists and bureaucrats in government, and execute them.</b>
Are you done yet? That was it. Did you see what he wrote? What, you think that’s something I wrote? Why of course it was. Because that was the only thing Z wrote. Z wrote what I wrote, exactly, without context, and with no agreement or disagreement present. Z wrote, literally, zero words of his own to comment on my quote.
So from May 20 to May 21, that was it.
<I>My reply: Look, Look! Marty. Z’s using me like his wiki source now. That means I am AN AUTHORITY, hehe.
My authority commands Z to bow down to the Gods of Palestine and Islam, by the way.</i>
Fast forwarding the movie maker machine, we arrive at May 24 where Martel is engaging in mortal combat with the Apocalypse Angel, Z.
“Zach, I honestly feel sorry for people like you. Aside from your utter lack of orginality, or any ability to act like a frickinEhuman being, you hector people, Soviet apparatchik-style, to conform to the dictates of the arid and sorry thing that passes for morality with you. I rejected Ymarasakar’s call to execute enablers of misery like you. “-Martel
Hrm, enablers of misery. Quite a title for the self-proclaimed angel of enlightenment here.
Later on, far far into the future:
Ymar:The Arrogant are not the free. They are the chained slaves of lowly ambitions.
Btw Z, your problem isn’t whether you were or were not pointing something [out]. Your problem was trying to make other people, like Martel, do things your way via verbal intimidation and hectoring.
One of the things I naturally wondered at the time was, if Z believed so mightily in whatever he seems to claim to believe, why didn’t Z say much of anything on May 20 when I had actually laid out my position? If there’s something wrong with Martel not saying anything 4 days later, isn’t there something even more wrong with Z who had said nothing at all, yet hypocritically claims to have the moral high ground to lecture others? Assuming we utilize Z-logic, which we can only do so for experiment’s sake. As prolonged use is unhealthy and not recommended.
Audience, I ask you, what does this look like. Is this truly what we would expect from an angel of truth…
As for Z’s 84, *snorts*, I can’t say I’m bothered much by listening to the howling of the damned. The Left likes to take things out of context. But they often forget something. They aren’t the only ones that can fight on that kind of battlefield. A con artist, in the end, need not be consistent in their proclamations of truth.
Handling, rather than horsepower is critical to autocrossing, which is why the Mazda Miata is a very popular, successful car. Light and nimble they are momentum cars. Lotus Elise is another momentum car.
Corvettes are big and heavy, fairly neutral handling, with lots of horsepower to make up for their weight. They tend to understeer, but that can be fixed and they’re good handling with throttle oversteer (apply judiciously). To get the car to rotate around a cone, apply a little throttle in the turn, the back end comes around in a little dance and you’re off to the next cone. The issue is getting the power to stick (wheelspin).
Take any rear engined are and you have some big pluses. Weight is over the drive tires, so it’s easier to get the power to “stick”. The big problem with rear or mid-engined cars is something called lift throttle oversteer, or snap oversteer. If in a corner you lift off the throttle, especially under braking, you will find yourself looking at the track backwards. It’s sudden and hard to catch, since the weight at the rear of the car, wants to continue in the same direction it was going while the front of the car, being lighter is fine with the idea of slowing.
So to drive a rear engine car fast, you have to resist the impulse to back off. To correct a rear engine car that’s starting to rotate (oversteer), you need to accelerate and plant the rear. Just at the time your instincts are telling you “Danger, Will, Danger, back off, slow down” you must instead add throttle.
The Fiero in this case is a shorter wheelbase car, which accentuates all the forces at work.
As to automatic vs. manual, it is true most sports cars like manual transmissions, since the application of power is more immediate and in older cars it is harder to keep in a specific gear. Newer automatics can be driven much like manual transmissions. In this case, the previous owner replaced the manual transmission with an automatic transmission, since lifting off the accelerator puts the rear under compression braking with a manual. The automatic works better, though their is some slippage, but it makes the car easier to control.
Have they created a digital interface to control gear shifts and what not utilizing an automatic interface?
>>I don’t know what the magic price that the world’s economy can absorb and produce the needed 3-4% real growth.>>
How long can that 3-4% continue?? Isn’t there some point at which growth just stops, and everything just hums along at the same rate with no real expansion??
BrianE: I’m not that optimistic, but I believe a conservative estimate of increased production based on proven reserves would be 25% of current consumption.
Presumably 25 % of current U.S. consumption, which would be about 6% of global consumption. Certainly, it would help reduce pressure on oil prices, but pales compared to the increased consumption in the exploding Asian economies.
BrianE: I have no problem with transitioning to LNG for mobile power (years ago I had a friend running propane in his service trucks and was happy with the results, given the lower energy content of propane). That would actually be a relatively easy conversion– if the anti-progressives weren’t so irrationally bound to pushing us back to the dark ages pre-hydrocarbons.
Natural gas creates less atmospheric carbon per unit of energy than oil or coal energy.
BrianE: Nuclear is the only known source that could provide reasonably priced energy with controllable environmental impacts– but the anti-progressives will do exactly with Obama and Reid did to Yucca Mountain.
The disaster at Fukushima did far more to damage the nuclear power industry than any number of “anti-progessives.”
BrianE: Doing nothing will guarantee shortages.
Short of an energy breakthrough, competition for dwindling supplies is inevitable. Conservation can alleviate pressure on supplies far more than increased drilling. Nevertheless, the U.S. will have to develop whatever economically feasible supplies they have.
Ymarsakar: No, no, no. What you need is to build an execution stand, take around 80% of the Leftists and bureaucrats in government, and execute them. That’ll solve the problem soon enough.
The first time we responded, we simply repeated what you wrote without comment. We fully expected you to clarify your position, but you didn’t. Nothing you have said then or now justifies the heinous nature of your proposal. If you want to clarify your statement now, that would be fine. Do you still propose executing 80% of the Leftists and bureaucrats?
suek: How long can that 3-4% continue?? Isn’t there some point at which growth just stops, and everything just hums along at the same rate with no real expansion??
If growth were a simple factor of energy, then at a 3% growth rate, in about 1000 years, humans would be utilizing as much energy as the Sun generates. But growth is actually a measure of value. For instance, people may place great value in a painting, such as the Mona Lisa, even though the energy of its production was minimal. So, there is no necessary limit to growth. However, it is an important realization that energy per capita can’t grow unbounded, at least as long as humans are bounded to the Earth.
Z: “The disaster at Fukushima did far more to damage the nuclear power industry than any number of “anti-progessives.”
Let’s wait and see, shall we? It turns out that Fukishima was a sloppily designed reactor with a sloppily designed emergency back-up plan and yet it still went through a monster earthquake and tsunami and sustained containable damage. It’s far too early to exaggerate the possible fall-out damage from Fukishima, at the risk of repeating the hysterical claims made about Chernobyl. We might also want to contrast the case of Fukishima with that of France, which produces the majority of its electrical power with advanced nuclear reactors and nary an industrial disaster.
suek: How long can that 3-4% continue??
If human history is anything to go by, Suek, the most important natural resource available to mankind is the grey matter between our ears. I have no doubt that there are new energy and tech revolutions simmering and ready to burst.
Danny Lemieux: Let’s wait and see, shall we?
It’s quite obvious that Fukushima damaged the nuclear industry, though probably not fatally.
Danny Lemieux: It’s far too early to exaggerate the possible fall-out damage from Fukishima, at the risk of repeating the hysterical claims made about Chernobyl.
The evacuation zone around Chernobyl was 2500 km^2. Radiation was spread all over Europe. Talk about externalities.
Chernobyl’s initial casualty estimates were in the 10,000s with predictions of hundreds of thousands of cases of cancer throughout Europe.
Final casualty figure: 59 dead.
Residual radiation concerns today: virtually none.
Here’s a good link, if you want to bone up on this:
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/chernobyl.html
Money quote: “The radioactivity spread over northern Europe caused some plants and wild animals to be more radioactive than was legal for human consumption. However, there were no identifiable illnesses outside the Soviet Union. There may be some increase in cancer but this is unlikely to be detectable, because of the large numbers of cancers from other causes.”
This, from the “worst nuclear disaster in history”.
Of course, that hardly prevents organizations like Greenpeace from scare-mongering, claiming a consensus of scientists to support its view (hey, it’s deja vu all over again!):
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/features/chernobyl-deaths-180406/
Long Island was an even worse case of Z exaggerations and misstatements.
We fully expected you to clarify your position, but you didn’t.
This yatz actually expects people to read his mind. Do you assume others have psychic powers that you have attributed to yourself in the long forgotten past?
People like Z are hopeless at social communication. They just don’t get it.
No wonder Z is said to be a hive mind.
So for example, if I wanted Danny to clarify his position, I, acting as Z, would write this.
This, from the “worst nuclear disaster in history”.
………………………………………………… (waiting).
…………………………………. (waiting)
But hold on, I’m not part of Z’s hive mind, so I don’t communicate using the Leftist brain chat channel.
The alternative: Yucca Mountain and dry cask storage
With the Yucca Mountain site closed by President Obama, there is no long-term storage available – a problem now being studied by a presidential blue-ribbon commission. But any long-term storage solution could take decades.
In the meantime, the study suggests an interim solution would be to remove spent fuel older than five years – now cool enough to be removed from water – and place it in above-ground “dry casks” that would use passive air cooling. That project would require 10 years and cost of $3 billion to $7 billion, the report acknowledges. But while the expense would “add a marginal increase to the retail price of nuclear-generated electricity of between 0.4 to 0.8 percent,” the report says, it would make the reactor sites safer.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0525/Report-Unacceptable-threat-from-spent-fuel-pools-at-US-nuclear-power-plants/%28page%29/2
One of the problems at the 40 year old Fukishima nuclear plant were the spent fuel rods, which are still stored on-site in water pools. The same is true for US nuclear plants. After 20 years of study, Yucca Mountain was selected as the best long term storage solution, and $8 billion later, a political decision was made to abandon Yucca Mountain.
So here we have a problem that all nuclear plants face– long term storage of spent rods thwarted, leaving the risk in place for at least another decade or two after two decades deciding the best solution.
This is why conservatives don’t believe a word from the anti-progressives. They don’t want solutions, they want problems to whine about.
BrianE writes:
“You’re right, abc, I know nothing about your parenting skills, and was trying to make light of your lengthy posts.”
No worries. I am not good at detecting humor, irony or other attempts to lighten the mood, as I’ve already amply demonstrated. One of my many perception deficits.
“Yes, I do agree the Saudis have a range of oil prices where the pig is bled without killing it. The world’s economies can probably sustain slow growth with $70 oil (and that represents some level of inflation as much as scarcity, IMO). Others may be arguing that we can become energy independent with domestic supplies. I’m not that optimistic, but I believe a conservative estimate of increased production based on proven reserves would be 25% of current consumption. That is enough to affect prices, IMO.”
In the short-term, perhaps. But not on any sustained basis. And it requires forcing Exxon to do uneconomical things, so you’d have to give up the laissez-faire, free market approach to implement.
“In my mind, we don’t want prices to collapse, but to reduce it back to economically sustainable levels.”
I don’t know what that is. In ’07, $100 oil seemed economically sustainable, and now it doesn’t. A lot of variables have changed in the last 4-5 years.
“I have no problem with transitioning to LNG for mobile power (years ago I had a friend running propane in his service trucks and was happy with the results, given the lower energy content of propane). That would actually be a relatively easy conversion– if the anti-progressives weren’t so irrationally bound to pushing us back to the dark ages pre-hydrocarbons.”
There is a group of environmentalists that are not entirely rational. But that group doesn’t represent everyone on the left.There is another group of environmentalists that seem irrational, but they are not. They just are working with a set of assumptions that say that we cannot sustainably continue with the current lifestyle, so they are calling for retrenchment. Most people say, well, you cannot ask for that. They reply, if the very sustainability of the planet is at stake, then you will have to. They are not irrational, but they are working with different assumptions than you are. To call them anti-progressive is really a misnomer, since, in their mind, the only way forward is to give up some of our current conveniences. They would call themselves progressives.
“I don’t know what the magic price that the world’s economy can absorb and produce the needed 3-4% real growth. I do know that the only hope of us recovering from the looming SS cliff is robust growth– we can’t tax or reduce spending enough to solve that one. Growth– and growth that exploits natural resources.”
Actually, the best source of growth is innovation, which could reduce the rate at which we exploit natural resources. I wish more solar fab plants, including the design of them, were happening in Detroit rather than Hebei.
“Wind is a fool’s errand. You’re up against economy of scale.”
Not necessarily. The upper plains in the US get tons of wind, and the scale economies come into play only when trying to ship those electrons to SF or NY. The real issue is the intermittant nature of the resource, and the inability to store electricity. But in localities with a lot of wind, it can still be up to 30% of baseload power.
“Solar- solar has potential, but how are those projects going in California? Stopped dead in their tracks by anti-progressives.”
Solar is the ultimate solution, but we need a lot more time to become more efficient with the technology. And the intermittant nature of it will require the same battery advances as with wind.
“Nuclear is the only known source that could provide reasonably priced energy with controllable environmental impacts– but the anti-progressives will do exactly with Obama and Reid did to Yucca Mountain. For years, Nevada took billions of dollars to develop the site, then in one fell swoop, set back an essential element of safe nuclear storage 20 years.”
I agree that the politics are very bad here. Essentially, Reid needed to rescind a prior commitment to support Yucca for storage in order to win a tight election. That personal political ambition could hold up the entire nation’s nuclear storage plans is outrageous. This is the ultimate NIMBY, except that they were paid and then said no.
The impacts are not controllable, however. Accidents happen and radiation will occur. It is not a question of if, but when. We should be honest about that.
Bear in mind, Ymarsakar, what the phrase “worst nuclear disaster in history” is intended to do. It’s to get people to assume that we’re talking about something incredibly awful, as the word “worst” implies.
It’s only when you take the time to look into Chernobyl in detail that you begin to understand that the worst was far, far better than the doomsdayers had proclaimed was going to happen. If anything, it not only taught us to understand piss-poor reactor design, but how even a worst-case scenario cooked up by the hysterics in the anti-nuke movement failed to bring anything close to the end of Europe As We Know It or turn the region around the disaster site into a permanent dead zone.
One of the potentially serious consequences were the spent fuel rods at Fukishima, which have been stored on=site for 40 years. It could have been a disaster equaling the earthquake and tsunami itself, which may exceed 20,000 dead.
In the US 65,000 tons of spent rods are being stored in the nuclear plants around the country.
Yucca Mountain was supposed to solve that problem, moving the processed rods to a secure stable geologic formation where they would slowing decay. After 20 years of study, and $8 billion building Yucca Mountain, President Obama, paying off Reid and the anti-progressives put a dagger through the heart of Yucca Mountain.
Starting over, it is estimated by supporters that within another 10 years and another $7 billion another solution will be found. Realistically, another 20 years will go by before the political will may exist to solve this serious technological problem. Why aren’t the same people railing against nuclear power up in arms that the solution to a major safety concern in the nuclear industry was tossed into the dumpster for political payoff. The silence is deafening.
The anti-progressive movement in the United States doesn’t want solutions to problems, they merely want to whine and obstruct and offer unworkable solutions. It’s hard to believe they actually believe the idiocy that wind and solar will meet our energy needs in the foreseeable future.
Of course, the Zachriels of the world will claim in 50 years we will have the solutions to the problem of energy storage. Fine, in 50 years we can utilize these technologies. But now and the foreseeable future we need to develop domestic hydrocarbon energy, keeping good paying American jobs in America. Anything else will constitute a slow, but sure economic decline.
I wrote post #108 before seeing abc’s comments in #106, so it is not a rebuttal.
I’m glad to see he realizes the huge setback Yucca Mountain is to a sustainable energy path, that might not be everyone’s choice, but offers the best chance of cutting CO2 levels and meet realistic energy needs.
Wind generators seldom produce more than 30% of rated output, economy of scale limits the potential output, the greenies aren’t going to like the esthetic blight and environmental cost in birds. These are local solutions, but can never develop into a national scale. True economic costs of wind are being hidden by subsidies. Our public power system is building windmillls to ship power to California. If the PUD has a portion of its power in renewables, the receiving utilities can count the power as a renewable source, regardless of where the power originated.
It is my understanding that California changed those rules. Here is a real live experiment– 33% of energy produced by renewables by 2020. We’ll see how that works out. Here’s a wrinkle:
“Under pressure from wind developers and investor-owned utilities around the region, the Bonneville Power Administration this week backed away from a plan to start pulling the plug on wind turbines when it has too much water and wind energy at the same time.
BPA Administrator Steve Wright is still reviewing a controversial plan to occasionally “curtail” wind farms in the region, a move the federal power-marketing agency has said is necessary to maintain grid reliability, protect migrating salmon and avoid passing big costs onto its public utility customers.
Wind developers and utilities who buy their output say such shutdowns are discriminatory, will breach transmission agreements and compromise wind-farm economics because the projects rely on lucrative production tax credits and the sale of renewable energy credits that are generated only when turbine blades are spinning.”
http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2011/04/bpa_wind_developers_argue_over.html
True cost of wind is hidden by subsidies.
More from OregonLive report:
The BPA, which operates 75 percent of the high-voltage transmission grid in the region, is responsible for balancing the minute-to-minute variations in supply and demand on the grid. The agency says growing wind capacity requires it to reserve more of its hydro generation as backup reserves, either to fill in for scheduled electricity when the wind isn’t blowing or back off hydro production when wind-farm output is higher than scheduled.
The BPA charges wind farms for that flexibility. But it says there’s only so much it can absorb before those reserves start to compromise regular operations.
Overgeneration typically occurs in the spring and early summer, when snow runoff and heavy rains combine to increase hydro generation and the same storm fronts rapidly ramp wind turbines. The BPA says the dam operators have only limited flexibility to dial back hydro generation to accommodate wind surges because dumping water through the dams’ spillways raises dissolved nitrogen levels in the river, which can harm migrating fish.
The result, BPA officials say, is that the agency is left with more power than regional customers need or that an already congested transmission system can ship out of the region.
“Eventually, you just run out of places to put it,” said Doug Johnson, a BPA spokesman.
Long-term fixes
The BPA has worked during the past two years — some say been pushed and dragged — to accommodate more wind by improving forecasting and transmission scheduling. Adding transmission or new storage is a potential solution, as is transferring the responsibility for balancing some of the variable supply and demand to other utilities. But those are expensive, long-term fixes.
Meanwhile, new wind farms keep mushrooming on the Columbia Plateau, exacerbating the problem. Last June, high wind and water nearly forced the BPA into “negative pricing,” when it is forced to pay utilities and independent power producers in the region to shut down their plants and take BPA power instead.
That’s expensive for wind farms, where the cost of curtailment is not just replacement power, but the loss of production tax credits and renewable energy tags they generate when operating. The BPA recently estimated the combined impact at $37 a megawatt hour.
That’s not a price the BPA or its public utility customers want to pay.
I should not have used idiocy in post #108, since they are sincere, but the cost of integrating variable sources such as wind have not been fully calculated. It would make sense to feather unneeded wind production– but those subsidies keep rearing their market-distorting heads.
Martel, if Russian maintenance isn’t enough to cause a nuke plant to go boom, then American engineering and Japanese engineering will surely beat down the chances.
BrianE, thanks for a thoroughly enjoyable description of what goes through a driver’s mind in autocrossing. Until you brought up the topic, I had no idea about it—now I actually think I could watch a competition and understand much of what’s going on.
What I love about this blog is you never know what people will bring to the table. Nice work, man.
Martel, it’s almost like people offer their experiences, to be judged on the merits utilizing the personal judgment of the observers and readers. It’s almost like individualism. It’s almost like a non-echo, non hive chamber.
It’s hard to believe they actually believe the idiocy that wind and solar will meet our energy needs in the foreseeable future.
That’s assuming the Left will give any energy to the starving penniless out of work Americans. If they hog all the energy to their elite ranks, wind and solar will more than meet their needs. Wouldn’t you say.
Ymar, shhhh. You know this blog is dedicated to expositions of pure, objective, state-of-the-art, peer-reviewed assertions by our moral and intellectual superiors.
It is not intended for independent people who like one another to get together to josh the pretensions of the age.
Danny Lemieux: Final casualty figure: 59 dead.
First of all, we didn’t mention casualty figures. We were talking about the cost of evacuating and abandoning for years thousands of square kilometers of land. What it the price of coastal real estate in Japan, by the way?
Danny Lemieux: Final casualty figure: 59 dead.
Though cancer deaths are difficult to calculate, it is incorrect to say that the immediate fatalities are the only deaths that occurred. Radiation causes cancer in approximate proportion to the dose. Referring to the WHO report, rather than your secondary source, there will be approximately 2200 deaths due to high doses of radiation, 4000 cases of thyroid cancer, but nearly all survived, 4000 early deaths due to low-level exposure, 350 thousand evacuated, and persistent fear has led to problems with redevelopment.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2005/pr38/en/
Other people in Europe who were exposed have a reason to be concerned. However, the impact was less than some once feared. Now, assign a value to all this damage. This is called an externality.
Ymarsakar: So for example, if I wanted Danny to clarify his position, I, acting as Z, …
We have repeatedly and directly asked you to clarify your position many times. Do you believe it is a reasonable to propose the execution of 80% of the Leftists in Britain as a method of crime control?
BrianE: Fine, in 50 years we can utilize these technologies. But now and the foreseeable future we need to develop domestic hydrocarbon energy, keeping good paying American jobs in America.
Absolutely, the U.S. should develop its hydrocarbon resources, however, those resources are not sufficient to impact the situation sufficiently to solve the problem, or even to push it off by more than few years. Too many people need too much energy.
The Chernobyl exclusion zone is 30-km in diameter, not “thousands of square kilometers” (scary phrase, that), but about 2,700 sq. km. Even that area appears to be shrinking, as people get over their initial irrational fears of irradiation, as promulgated by your favorite news cites/sites.
As I said, Zach, Chernobyl was an “absolutely worst case scenario”. Fukishima will not approach this.
In the meantime, Ukraine is actually pondering re-developing that very exclusion zone for agriculture.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7VBk1kmHoE
Two key takeaway points from this video:
“A lot of the land life is immune to irradiation” and “We don’t understand….”
Zachriel: The evacuation zone around Chernobyl was 2500 km^2. Radiation was spread all over Europe. Talk about externalities.
Zachriel: However, the impact was less than some once feared. Now, assign a value to all this damage. This is called an externality.
Danny Lemieux: Chernobyl was an “absolutely worst case scenario”. Fukishima will not approach this.
You forgot to include the cost estimate.