This is very true, just because I say something does not make it so.
I believe if we where to debate the issue further, I could show you many similarities of the green movement and religion.
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck.......
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Is it right to deny the American people jobs because of your religion?
- Thread starter Reverend Rick
- Start date
I believe if we where to debate the issue further, I could show you many similarities of the green movement and religion.
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck.......
Terrywoodenpic
Oldest Heretic
Eventually the world will not be able to supply enough oil to keep industry running and homes warm.
This is a world wide problem not an American one.
The latest lithium air batteries can run a car for over 500 miles.
That the Americans fail to take up green options says more about them. than the president.
Pipeline Jobs are temporary. Global warming and the energy economy are permanent features.
Oil is better used as a long term chemical feed stock rather than as an energy fuel.
This is a world wide problem not an American one.
The latest lithium air batteries can run a car for over 500 miles.
That the Americans fail to take up green options says more about them. than the president.
Pipeline Jobs are temporary. Global warming and the energy economy are permanent features.
Oil is better used as a long term chemical feed stock rather than as an energy fuel.
I think you might be able to stretch things and call environmentalism a philosophy, but I think calling it a religion renders the word "religion" meaningless.This is very true, just because I say something does not make it so.
I believe if we where to debate the issue further, I could show you many similarities of the green movement and religion.
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck.......
However, if you're saying that environmental organization spokespeople should be eligible for the clergy housing allowance and get part of their salary tax-free, I could go with that. If we've got to have that privilege, why not grant it to other people doing good work, too?
Mathematician
Reason, and reason again
As Obama pointed out in his speech, over 75% of the pipeline has been approved and is under construction.
I for one am glad we have a president that cares about our future and won't lead us down the same paths we've explored for 40 years. He's got my vote.
I for one am glad we have a president that cares about our future and won't lead us down the same paths we've explored for 40 years. He's got my vote.
It is a stretch, I will admit that, but not a long stretch.
See, it is a religion. We might as well give them the full benefit of a non-profit.
work in progress
Well-Known Member
I have discussed this subject a few times when I've had the opportunity to talk to a friend's son - who works as a geologist for a major oil company. The last time I spoke to him on this subject, his perspective was that the only areas of the world where there are large tracts that have not been mapped for oil and gas development, are in the Arctic Ocean and the Antarctic Continent (and even much of those regions are already explored). The imaging or mapping technology available to geologists is getting more accurate, and able to provide clearer projections of how large oil and gas fields are; but development has waited until more accessible oil and gas was recovered.
Once again, it's a matter of going after the low-hanging fruit first. Development of oil and virtually all other natural resources, becomes dirtier and more energy-intensive as extraction continues to the less desirable product.
But, then there is the point that I forgot to advance yesterday, which also should be addressed by everyone with the "live for today" attitude: if oil and other natural resources are used up in a few short decades by an increasingly rapacious civilization, what are the moral implications for leaving future generations with nothing but a hotter, polluted and degraded world to deal with and fight for survival?
All I know is that when I hold a match up to water coming out of my kitchen tap, it doesn't catch fire!
The first time I heard of fracking was when T Boone Pickens was running around promoting windmills and running cars and trucks on natural gas. It's as a transportation fuel that most of the fracking-promoters push for development....and in the few applications so far where natural gas has been used to power trucks and buses, it's been an expensive waste of time.
And, how is nuclear not as "natural" as gas?
Okay, maybe you could ask him if he's familiar with this study published by two Cornell University professors - reported in Scientific American a few days ago, which claims that hydraulic fracking releases uncontrollable amounts of "fugitive" methane into the air:
Robert Howarth, an ecologist and evolutionary biologist, and Anthony Ingraffea, a civil and environmental engineer, reported that fracked wells leak 40 to 60 percent more methane than conventional natural gas wells. When water with its chemical load is forced down a well to break the shale, it flows back up and is stored in large ponds or tanks. But volumes of methane also flow back up the well at the same time and are released into the atmosphere before they can be captured for use. This giant belch of "fugitive methane" can be seen in infrared videos taken at well sites.
Add to the equation, the fact that methane levels in the atmosphere are also rising.Level of Heat-Trapping CO2 Reaches New High, Growth Rate Speeds Up, Methane Levels Are Rising Again
This may be due largely from the burning of tropical forests and the progressive melting of Arctic permafrost, but a massive push into natural gas fracking will add even more methane to the atmosphere. Add to this that we are learning - thanks to Dr. Drew Shindell of NASA's Goddard Space Institute - that the greenhouse effects of methane gas in the atmosphere are greater than the standard projection used in the IPCC reports, and last much longer than projected in the IPCC, because of what happens as methane combines with other air pollutants. Even at 100 years, Shindell finds methane is combining with other air pollution to generate an impact 33 times more powerful than CO2:
Aerosols make methane more potent: Nature
Drew Shindell, at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, and colleagues ran a range of computerized models to show that methane's global warming potential is greater when combined with aerosols atmospheric particles such as dust, sea salt, sulphates and black carbon.
The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol assume methane to be, tonne-for-tonne, 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide at warming the planet. But the interaction with aerosols bumps up methane's relative global warming potential (GWP) to about 33, though there is a lot of uncertainty around the exact figure. In the Kyoto Protocol, GWPs are used to govern emissions trading. "This study is saying those GWPs should be revisited because they're leaving out an important thing," says Shindell.
The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and treaties such as the Kyoto Protocol assume methane to be, tonne-for-tonne, 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide at warming the planet. But the interaction with aerosols bumps up methane's relative global warming potential (GWP) to about 33, though there is a lot of uncertainty around the exact figure. In the Kyoto Protocol, GWPs are used to govern emissions trading. "This study is saying those GWPs should be revisited because they're leaving out an important thing," says Shindell.
The "forcing" is done by economic expectations, which it needs to be added, have not improved the wellbeing of the vast majority of people. It's interesting to note that polls on personal satisfaction have shown a steady drop since the 1950's, along with a steady rise in dissatisfaction, depression over the years....all at a time when prosperity was supposed to be increasing! So, who is benefiting from the frenzy of increased consumption and increasing resource and energy use? A step back reveals the modern way of life to resemble a crack addict, who is being sickened and will eventually die from his addiction, yet wants more and more of the drug!
Certainly! But I would propose that ALL energy and economic development needs to be weighed through the lens of how they impact the environment. Everything we do, all of the new inventions, political theories about how to run a government, are all a waste of time if they continue the path to destruction.
I am cautious; but most of the disinformation has come from the side that wants to develop potentially lucrative energy sources. While on a conservative forum, I was treated to one report after another coming from oil-funded front groups that picked at parts of IPCC reports on climate change. On average, most IPCC projections have been overly conservative, and have underestimated the increase in greenhouse gas levels, average global temperatures, the melting of permafrost and sea ice in the Arctic etc. (that new analysis on effects of methane mentioned earlier would be yet another example), yet a small number of climatologists who work on behalf of oil, and the expensive effort to propagate their confusing message in the media, has successfully stopped any serious attempts by the U.S., Canadian, and Australian governments as well as many others, to take action.
There is a lot of money in oil and gas extraction, as can be witnessed from last years' income statements that put seven large oil conglomerates among the top ten most profitable corporations in the world. The disinformation campaigns run by the oil companies, starting back in the 80's, have wasted precious time to steer our world away from turning into a hotter planet that will be difficult for future generations to adjust to and survive.
That sounds good! But, while cleaning water used in fracking would lessen the environmental impacts locally, that methane problem is still hanging over this development....let alone the fact that natural gas is merely "the cleanest" of fossil fuels, not devoid of having a carbon footprint itself. A switch from oil and coal to mostly natural gas would slow the rates of human-caused greenhouse gas increases, but it would not serve as a permanent solution to the problem.
work in progress
Well-Known Member
It's typical right wing demagoguery! I used to see this approach all the time before I quit going on conservative forums: 'your religion is evolution', 'your religion is liberalism' or 'your religion is environmentalism'.....and this was usually coming from people who thought the universe was 6000 years old, and Adam went strolling through the Garden of Eden with his pet dinosaurs!
What I find totally ludicrous about the OP is identifying President Obama as a member of this "religion!" I don't care if anyone says ecology is my religion....I consider the health of the biosphere to be priority #1, but Obama....what a joke! Just because he's worried now that the bulk of his young activists have abandoned him for OWS movements, and is trying to reel some of them back in, if environmentalism is a religion, there are no politicians in power, or green capitalists seeking ways to make money from alternative energy plans, who belong to this church!
That is one of the most ridiculous posts I have ever read. Obama (and the US) is hardly even close to a "Green" nation.
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Shadow Wolf
Certified People sTabber & Business Owner
I call it a cat. They are not stationary, unlike traditional mousetraps, and will actively seek out and hunt mice, inside and out if you let them. Occasionally they will even bring their catches to you as a present. The look they give you is actually really cute, but knowing there is a dead mouse at your feet also makes it gross.
But with infrastructure needing to be updated, plenty of scientists, engineers, and technicians to put to work, and the near death experience of the American auto industry as a trend, why should we continue oil, coal, and gas dependency? It will take time to replace everything yes, but we are getting so desperate that tar sand oil is being considered even though it is far more pollutant than crude oil. And it is very basic science that carbon dioxide does cause temperatures to rise. We are far from record highs, but it is not clear if we are causing climate change or if it is the earth going through it's own natural process. It seems obvious that we should sway to the side of caution incase things get very bad and out of our control.
Really the only reason I can think of is there is not as much money to be made in green industry. Where will the oil tycoons make there money if every house in America was fitted to rely on the local topography and climate to provide energy instead of use having to buy non-renewable energy from them? Most Americans would have to cut back on TV and computer time, but most Americans also need more exercise both physically and mentally.
And with the estimates of how much oil is left being very contradicting, with estimates ranging from only a few decades left to new sources always being discovered, again why are we not approaching the issue with caution and reasoning that we have to act now to avert what can potentially be one of the greatest man-made disasters since Fat Boy and Little Man, if not worse since it would effect the entire globe.
Neither is Albert Gore.
Neither is Albert Gore.
Not much of a fan of his either. Too many people seem to be at each extreme. What we need is investment in research to allow a smooth transition to occur from fossil fuels to renewables.
work in progress
Well-Known Member
No, actually I am where you would call the "Extreme"....which pretty much means that all human activity, especially economic activity, has to be sustainable and in harmony with the natural economics of a living biosphere. The environment is resourceful and is able to absorb a lot of crap, but we are forcing the climate so fast that the natural negative feedback effects of carbon sequestration and other mitigating factors, are not going to have time to clean up our mess....especially when we keep making it bigger!
Without factoring in the unknown...like some scientific genius to come up with a superfast method carbon sequestration, what we've added into the atmosphere already will take 100,000 years to reduce back to pre-industrial levels.
Some idiots think this is a good thing apparently, because high greenhouse gas levels means no danger of a new ice age....I'll take the ice age!
As for Al Gore...I still have no idea what percentage of his latching on to the global warming issue was motivated by genuine concern, and what part is personal self-interest...because he sure has positioned himself and his friends to profit substantially if near useless schemes like carbon offsets or carbon caps and trading become established policy. And this is the problem! The fools that are still denying climate change want Al Gore as their opposition, not James Hanson or any real scientists who say that unless societies are willing to tax carbon, they are doing nothing to steer out of certain disaster.
Daemon Sophic
Avatar in flux
Unfortunately, most of those voting fools really do believe that Gore is the source of information on global warming. Rather than recognizing that Gore is simply being an honest journalist, and reporting what the scientists have found out on their own.
...and since they loathe Gore so much (probably due to their guilt for their own involvement in the only successful coup in US history), they won't accept reality if Gore speaks it.
Out of curiosity, what other things can we play this game with? Could we say that consumption is a religion and declare government subsidies of the oil industry to be a violation of church-state separation?
Umm... I wasn't trying to suggest that it's a religion; I was trying to illustrate that saying it is a religion has implications that don't make a great deal of sense.
work in progress
Well-Known Member
Unfortunately, most of those voting fools really do believe that Gore is the source of information on global warming. Rather than recognizing that Gore is simply being an honest journalist, and reporting what the scientists have found out on their own.
...and since they loathe Gore so much (probably due to their guilt for their own involvement in the only successful coup in US history), they won't accept reality if Gore speaks it.
The problem isn't the scientific research that Gore presents in his movie and power point lectures, it's his prescriptions for fixing the problem. He's a strong advocate for green capitalist ventures that have little longterm value, and the now widely discredited approach of buying carbon offsets. Going back perhaps 10 years ago, when I was on the right, and considered Gore, Maurice Strong, and other major players in green capitalism to be hucksters -- part of my resistance was because of the way these people were positioning themselves and their companies to make a windfall from a new regime of carbon caps and trading.
As I became convinced by the scientific evidence of global climate warming, I also started learning about how difficult and ineffectual these incentive schemes would be. The most feasible incentive would be the one that virtually all politicians and businessmen are running away from: direct carbon taxation. Carbon taxes would finally price in the true cost of fossil fuels, by adding the environmental costs that are being left for the commons to pay for collectively in one way or another.
Income taxes and other sales taxes could be shifted to balance out the loss of income of the average motorist and home-owner, but the people who expect cheap gas because they drive 50 miles each way to work, are going to have to deal with an eventual reality that, in many ways, life is going to return somewhat to the patterns prior to WWII, before abundant cheap energy made car ownership, living in the suburbs (and exurbs), cheap air travel, and globalized outsourcing of agriculture and manufacturing, all part of what we consider being "modern." Civilization will either continue in a return to localization and greater restrictions on what we can burn and throw away, or it will end with a crash, and dubious long term prospects for the survival of the human race for more than the next 200 years.
I won't argue with this because I agree with you but the thing is humans are not willing to reduce their standards of living to the degree it would take to accomplish this, therefore to be realistic we need to have a gradual change that will not cause huge instabilities. Technologically there are still some problems with wide spread renewable energy.
Mathematician
Reason, and reason again
Green capitalism is foreseeable and achievable. Indeed I would argue that it is the only conceivable option as money is too entrenched in every nation on Earth. A complete upheaval may be necessary for other ends, but it's not near fruition; Europe has taken great strides in promoting industries and standards that put the 'Old World' ahead.
Natural gasoline is a depleting and politically volatile resource. Our predictions on Peak Oil have remained consistently accurate, with perhaps a promoted timescale of a few years due to deep-sea refineries, but the technology is not keeping up with the expanding populations and energy consumption. Coal is more accessible, but it's also more hazardous to both human health and the environment. Burning coal leads to radiation, smog, and atmospheric clutter.
There are still plenty of profitable steps one can take. The problem is lack of motivation. Government assistance has been following oil and coal for over a hundred years. It needs to shift. Nuclear, solar, and where applicable geothermal are already profitable enterprises. Recycling certain materials is as well. As these technologies become more profitable than their competitors, we don't want to be left in the wake.
Natural gasoline is a depleting and politically volatile resource. Our predictions on Peak Oil have remained consistently accurate, with perhaps a promoted timescale of a few years due to deep-sea refineries, but the technology is not keeping up with the expanding populations and energy consumption. Coal is more accessible, but it's also more hazardous to both human health and the environment. Burning coal leads to radiation, smog, and atmospheric clutter.
There are still plenty of profitable steps one can take. The problem is lack of motivation. Government assistance has been following oil and coal for over a hundred years. It needs to shift. Nuclear, solar, and where applicable geothermal are already profitable enterprises. Recycling certain materials is as well. As these technologies become more profitable than their competitors, we don't want to be left in the wake.
Daemon Sophic
Avatar in flux
As for Gore, I have no problem with those who have foresight gaining wealth. In fact, that is a lot better than most of the techniques used by the wealthy.
As for your second and third paragraphs.....I completely agree with you: as would Gore, so it seems. His recent book "Our Choice", brings up carbon taxation on numerous occasions, as a centerpiece of getting businesses to recognize the real cost of using fossil fuels.