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BP Welcomes You to the Apocalypse
Please do not worry. Please do not fret about that one thing you always fret about, or that other thing, or even that third thing that might have something to do with erupting oil, dead pelicans and that sickening feeling in your gut that Something is Very Wrong Indeed.
I come bearing fabulous news. There is no longer any need to concern yourself with pesky trifles like love, a mortgage, child rearing, planting a garden, dreams, money, shoes, wristwatches, parking spaces, mysterious rashes, foreign policy, baseball, bridge tolls or generally caring about much of anything in particular.
I am delighted to report it will all be over soon. If not sooner. It's true.
And it's a good thing, too, because I was just reading up on six of the worst-case scenarios resulting from the BP spill, all sorts of horrors and tragedies, abuses and unspeakables, from dire seafood shortages to horrifying ecosystem destruction, wildlife mutilation to all the years and decades before the gulf region will be anywhere near recovered. These scenarios all were, in a word, bleak. They were, in three more, thoroughly f--ing depressing.
They were also, whoops, from about two months ago. So I clicked around and quickly found another, far more recent worst-case scenario article, and boy, were its scenarios worse indeed. So awful that they effectively made the earlier batch seem meek and laughable and even sort of quaint.
So it's come to this. Every day in the media, a sort of deranged, comical footrace to figure out which worst-case scenario is really the worst, because every day comes a new stat, prediction, photo, possibility for abject horror we hadn't even conceptualized yet because, well, we've never exactly been here before, not at this scale. How bad can it all get, really? No one has a clue. Joy!
But I'm not at all worried. Because the fact is, almost none of those worst-case scenarios will actually come to pass. Do you know why? Because there are two or three even worse worst-case scenarios that easily trump any you might be reading about anywhere. Ultra, mega, super worst-case scenarios that make all the rest seem like a little splotch on your pretty new iPhone 4.
So, just what are these supermegaworst-case scenarios? They all have one thing in common: Each one of them, all by itself, spells the end of modern life as we know it. Utter annihilation. The End. I am so not kidding. OK, maybe a little. But only until we all die. After that, not kidding at all.
BP Will Kill Us All Scenario #1: Everyone knows that, early on in the spill, BP was thoughtful enough to pump millions of gallons of a horrible chemical dispersant called Corexit 9500 into the gusher, a violently toxic compound so notoriously lethal it's been banned for years by the European union. Obama & Co finally caught on to BP's tactic and told them to knock it off.
Too late. Obscure Russian scientists tell us Corexit's deadly compounds are now breaking up and evaporating into North American rainclouds, which will shortly begin raining down complete toxic hell on us all, poisoning all crops, babies, cats, Christians, Starbucks baristas and none-too-bright redneck videographers -- though it will somehow magically spare the really good jazz clubs in Louisiana and that one guy who scored the goal for the USA in the World Cup, because he's a freakin' hero.
These scientists say the toxic rain could be so poisonous, it will destroy the entire food chain and plunge North America into chaos, rendering the entire region unlivable, with any straggling survivors crawling desperately up to Canada, where they will be promptly made into slave labor to build hockey arenas and drink lager and fade into the woods.
Does that sound dubious? Totally implausible? Fine. No problem. For there is another, even better backup apocalypse scenario, even more melodramatic and wickedly cinematic, and therefore much more likely to come to pass.
BP Will Kill Us All Scenario #2: Apparently, deep in the ocean floor, just beneath the gushing oil, lives a massive bubble of methane gas the size of... oh, let's just say Texas. Maybe Oklahoma. South Carolina. Someplace gassy and slightly rancid and always ready to explode at the poke of a big phallic stick.
This is the drama: All our mucking around on the ocean floor could trigger a methane explosion so gargantuan, it will cause a tsunami. Not just any tsunami, mind you, but a "supersonic tsunami" so ultra-awesomely massive it will effortlessly wipe out the much of the gulf coast states, killing millions and completely destabilizing the nation and inducing zombie riots in the streets as everyone wails over the loss of Florida. Or, you know, not.
So there you have it. Toxic rain and supersonic tsunamis, the end of North America as we know it. Done. Finished. Certainly, one of those two scenarios is guaranteed to come to pass, right? Maybe, if we're really lucky, even both?
All right, fine. In the off-off chance that invisible Russian scientists and nutball doomsayers are wrong (impossible!), well, there is one more glorious mega scenario to consider. There is a backup to the backup to the backup. Hey, we're Americans. When it comes to dorky apocalyptic visions, we got you covered.
Here is your grand finale: A new survey says that a disturbingly large percentage of Americans -- 40 percent, to be exact -- actually believe Jesus will return by 2050, likely riding on the back of a flaming asteroid (30 percent think one will hit us by then), waving a cowboy hat and yodeling as he careens toward our hapless blue dot of inequity, pain and lousy AT&T reception.
Jesus will then crash land in Texas, wink at Dubya and Sarah Palin, and then sweep up all the True Believers in their beige Dodge minivans just as the earth shudders and implodes, just like one of those swirling black holes in "Star Trek."
How cool will that be? Answer: It will be very cool indeed. It is so cool, in fact, it totally wipes out the need to care much about anything at all. See how easy? Now, who wants pie?
107 Comments so far
Show Allokay, so what are supposed to do? Just sit and wait for one or all of your disasters to unfold? No, we have to demand that our supposed president stop sitting on his hands and use this catastrophe as a chance to once and for all educate the American people about the crisis we face. If he and his lackeys were on the air talking about nothing but climate disaster 24/7, they would shift the agenda away from all the distracting crap from Afghanistan to the World Cup. Is it possible he is as stupid as Bush and really doesn't grasp how little time we have to get off oil - even if the Macondo oil volcano is somehow plugged?
30 years ago we had little time to get off oil. It's too late now. The "Macondo oil volcano" is just the excamation point on our self-destruction.
Mark.......I'll have lemon meringue. And a Starbuck's tall double mocha. Ya, that's the ticket.
You're assuming we have a functioning government. That my friend, is down the memory hole. We do not have a government or a Congress.
We have is a bloodthirsty mob of very selfish, very greedy, and very rich sociopaths controlling the US. Wall St sociopaths are calling the shots and the sociopaths calling formally known as "elected officials" are making it happen for them.
The only thing we're gonna get from Obama is new and creative ways to hide the death, destruction, and massive toxins infiltrating the air, land, and water of half the nation. In case you haven't noticed all Obama's been doing is running interference for BP. I wouldn't hold my breath for anyone to do a damn thing except the expected phoney handwringing.
They won't be able to hide for long, and I think they know that. No doubt they have a 'plan B' to manage the angry million who feel like they have nothing more to lose. Whatever plan they may have conjured will not work; if nothing else psychopaths and sociopaths are great at deluding themselves, and 'containment' is the greatest delusion of all.
They're ready for it. Troops on the not too distant border, stepping up the use of "spy" drones.
No doubt they're going to use everything they've got to stop anyone from getting in the way of their plans.
The forces of evil occupying the white house, congress and courts are locusts who have evolved to require a daily diet of corporate money.
When it comes to killing their own families and friends, those 'troops' may draw the line, and not follow orders. Look at McCrystal. There may be a rebellion in the military ranks if marshal law is called. Whatever happens, should get interesting. That's why 'control' is often an illusion; there are just too many variables.
I thought the final paragraphs about the messiah returning and saving us was an inappropriate mockery of Abrahamic faith.
The BP oil disaster was built on faith in technology and money, and NOT faith in God or nature.
I'd have to disgree with your statement about the rapture. I know many people that fully believe that they will be "raptured" at any moment. In fact I've been listening to a well known fundamentalist preacher talk about it on the radio for quite a while now.
The disaster itself may have been built on faith in money, but the oil industry was built by us. We support it. We create the demand.
And if you and I had any faith in god or nature, we would not live the way we do. We'd be living in tee-pee's or wagiwas or yurts or longhouses and living off the bounties of nature instead of forcefully raping the environment for the things we covet. And we'd be living a spiritually fulfilling life worshipping nature and respecting our fellow beings.
But no. We just want our cars, TVs, computers, restaurants...............and pie.
And some, a lot, just want to go on in denial believing that their "faith" is all that matters and god will take them to heaven before the tribulation takes place.
It would then seem that the indigenous cultures that lived in peace and harmony with Mother Earth were right, and those violent White tribes that came out of that small peninsula in Europe and conquered the world were with murderous high tech and science were (are) wrong. So we have had it wrong all along and nature will have her revenge.
that's the way I see it.
I took the piece as a satire of apocalypticism, so one shouldn't take such points literally. Although I have to admit, I've never gone in for salvationist thinking. Speaking of our earthly situation, we have to save ourselves, Jesus isn't going to fix things for us.
Great post. Too bad the author ruined it by giving Obama a shameless pass.
We've got an Obama apolgist writing about our own extinction. It's absurd. Obama and Salazar gave BP an environmental waiver, been pro drilling fanatics, and have been diligently covering for BP since day one. They've also literally stood aside, and placed the entire GOM population and all of it's environemntal riches into the deranged care of BP operatives. Discusting.
Mr. Morford writes that Obama told BP to stop Corexit but the damage was already done, well I say bullshit. Obama publicly told BP to stop the Corexit, but privately it appears he told them to go right ahead since they never stopped using it.
No wonder this country is so dangerous. We can't get the whole truth anywhere. Nobody in this criminal enterprise formally known as the US government deserves a pass, especially Obama who is fast shaping up to surpass Bush as the worst president in American history. Obama will be remembered as the man who put America on the fast track to total collapse.
Morford is a typical bourgeois-gay San-Francisco liberal. So of course he is not going to attack the democrats. He probably attends every party Pelosi throws for her extra loyal supporters, and you can be rest assured that he did not vote for Sheehan in the last election.
Obama hired Steven Chu to be the head of the Department of Energy. And Steven Chu thinks BP is going to "save the world":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6Ui_4_cTE0
Factor in that Obama was the biggest recipient of BP cash for his presidential campaign, that his administration awarded the necessary waivers for BP to drill a well a mile deep in the Gulf KNOWING they did not have realistic plans or the necessary equipment to deal with an out of control gusher and that BP is STILL in control of the crime scene and on and on.
I heard an interesting interview this morning on the Stephanie Miller show with Terry Tamminen. He has a new book out, "Lives Per Gallon":
http://www.amazon.com/Lives-Per-Gallon-True-Addiction/dp/B0039W3MII
"The Shock Doctrine" is real.
And finally, here's a new documentary regarding the War in Afghanistan. It's coming out in L.A. now at the Landmark in West L.A.:
http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/restrepo/
We cannot continue to allow our government to wage these resource wars. We all know these are resource wars and have zero to do with Al Queda. Al Queda is just a boogey man to scare us into "going along to get along" with the power elite:
http://www.youtube.com/user/councilonsper
The Democrats and Republicans are the enemies of the people of the United States because they no longer represent our interests. They represent the interests of the power elite, of Wall Street and of the multi-national corporations.
The only hope we have of changing the ugly course our world is on is to form a new political party to fight them and along with that we will have to demand paper ballots for all elections and the counting will have to happen by human beings at every local precinct. Anything short of this....end game.
(Since the Republican and Democratic parties have sold our election systems to private, for-profit corporations).
Apocalypse Never: Forging the Path to a Nuclear Weapon-Free World (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_2_9?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=tad+daley+apocalypse+never&sprefix=Tad+Daleyps&field-keywords=tad+daley+apocalypse+never&sprefix=Tad+Daley)
Apocalypse Never is without any question the most serious, important, and hopeful book that I have read in my lifetime. The Gulf oil spill is a "shot across the bow." It is warning us that things happen, things that no one either designed or anticipated. We MUST get down to ZERO NUCLEAR WEAPONS and not let a "Gulf disaster" occur with nuclear weapons!
1. The book "Apocalypse Never: Forging the Path to a Nuclear Weapons-Free World" by Dr. Tad Daley (Rutgers University Press, 2010) is by far the most important book that I have ever read in my lifetime. I wholly recommend it for your review and study. Tad has among other accomplishments served as the late great Senator Alan Cranston as his research director, grass-roots organizer, and brainstorm partner.
2. Dr. Daley begins by reviewing the multitude of environments in which nuclear weapons could be used -- accident, mismanagement, terrorism, or national intentional use. Instances of all these have happened or nearly happened before. The author provides a wealth of shockingly convincing background information and quotes to back up his warnings. The well-known Cuban Missile Crisis was just a start. It seems self-evident to me that if we keep pursuing our present lackadaisical course and if humankind is not able sooner or later to get these monstrous exterminators down to zero nuclear weapons under adequate international inspection, then an eventual nuclear catastrophe of unimaginable proportions is not just possible, but will with time become a virtual certainty. We are talking about your and my children and our grandchildren.
3, But in spite of this evident danger, Dr. Daley remains an optimist in the spirit of the great Norman Cousins, Albert Schweitzer, and Martin Luther King. Not content with reviewing the horrendous (and little appreciated) dangers facing all of us humans, he goes on to show how the abolition of nuclear weapons, and perhaps of other weapons of mass destruction, can be accomplished given the will and the drive of all of us.
President Obama himself has taken a giant step in the right direction, concluding an agreement with the Russian President to mutually cut our enormous arsenals by a third. This first step, taking place in the presence of our large remaining stockpiles, does not affect the "balance of power" or our "security." But of course, as we proceed along the road to zero nuclear weapons, we will have to learn to institute a legal structure along with an appropriate inspection infrastructure. (My opinion.) As you are probably aware, even Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn, William Perry, and George Shultz have seen the handwriting on the wall and have authored a landmark opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal.
The most important lesson from the current disastrous Gulf oil spill is to see it as a "shot across the bow." We have learned unambiguously that things happen, things that were neither designed nor expected. The time is now to see that things don't happen with nuclear weapons, whose result could be not the despoiling of the Gulf but indeed the extermination of human life.
You can get the book from Amazon.com for less than $20. I strongly urge you to read it and pass its crucial information on to your friends.
Felix Rosenthal.
I understand that you are trying to get us to lighten up a bit with your "humorous" essasy, Morford. I'm guessing you live nowhere near the Gulf Coast. Am I correct?
Strange article. He puts out some doubtful worse case scenarios out there while ignoring likely worse case scenarios.
After a bit of research it looks like it would be doubtful that disbursements and oil would end up in rain clouds and be spread over a very large area. BUT hurricane winds could pick up both oil and disbursements and deposit them many miles inland causing huge problems for coastal cities and towns.
As far as the giant methane bubble goes. The Gulf of Mexico is basically a pin cushion dotted with better than 3800 oil rigs. I suspect that if a methane pocket the size of a large state existed, some other oil rig would have stumbled across it by now.
But there are more realistic worse case scenarios out there. Like species going extinct, collapse of fisheries, huge areas of the Gulf left as dead zones, tens of thousands of peoples lives, and lifestyles destroyed, and as I mentioned before coastal cities and towns tuned into toxic waste zones by a hurricane.
IHMO things are bad enough now without dreaming up unlikely worse case situations.
The noxious gases from oil and Corexit are being absorbed by the clouds so it can and will begin to rain a toxic brew. The longer this goes on, toxic rains will fall in the Gulf region as well as hundreds of miles away.
Rest assured, these scenarios of the Corexit and oil evaporating along with the water and raining down with the water are impossible. Water does not carry dissolved substances when it evaporates. Recall what distilled water is? And, the amount of evaporated oil or corexit required for it to reach saturation and precipitate (like in the cylinders of a flooded car engine for those old enough to remember malfunctioning carburetors and ignition systems) would have to be so stupendously high that the atmosphere would explode first.
Water vapor coalesces upon a spec of dust high in the atmosphere to form a liquid rain drop. Water vapor is lighter than air which is why it rises in the first place. Light petrochemicals, such as octane, are lighter than air also, and evaporate just like water evaporates. Why wouldn't light petrochemicals also coalesce upon a spec of dust to form a liquid rain drop? I'm not disputing you, I'm just asking for more detailed info. Aren't the physics the same, and only the vapors differ? Trust me, I hope you are correct!!
Because, just like water in a cloud, the volatile-petroleum-relative-humidity would need to reach 100 percent for the petroleum hydrocarbon to precipitate out about a nucleus and from a cloud droplet. Dismissing the completely impossible high amounts of evaporated oil to achieve such an oil-dewpoint for a whole air mass, it would entail a fuel-air mixture for the air mass passing through the explosive air-fuel ratio, resulting in the atmosphere exploding at the first spark or lightning stroke. But come to think of it, even before this, all life on the ground in this air mass would be asphyxiated by the vapors.
All this is common sense to any auto mechanic. I've opened up gas tanks to replace fuel pumps and gauge senders, and even in a sealed gas tank, gasoline-dew doesn't form inside the tank (although water-dew can).
Of course, oily soot particles from the smoke form the burning of the oil can get in the clouds and come down with the rain. And this soot is nastier stuff than light hydrocarbons.
I'm not at all familiar with the properies of Corexit, but I believe you're mistaken about the relative humidity thing. If there is any form of a gas in the air and it has any degree of solubility in water, then it will be reabsorbed by the rain drops as they change state and fall through the air.
However, I doubt that any of that matters much because the next hurricane is gonna drown everything in oil and corexit and who knows what. And the surface temps I hear are outrageously high and it should be a wild storm.
I am no expert on physics, but it seems to me that if you have a mixture of alcohol and water (and appropriate flavors) in wine, and then you set about to distill it, the distillate will contain a fairly high percent of alcohol, much higher than in the mixture you started with. In fact, isn't that how brandy is made? The chemicals in crude (as well as the dispersants) are much like alcohol, aren't they? In other words, they can evaporate with the water and condense into droplets. I am not saying we are due for an apocalypse, but it is true that small children and pregnant women have good reasons to stay inside during a rainstorm.
the distillation process first extracts the alcohol, then the various flavoring elements and the water. If you stop the distillation early, you get nearly pure alcohol if you continue it, the last stuff out is just water.
Why isn't the rain from a storm at sea salty? Even the wind blown sea spray from a hurricane or nor-easter only reaches a mile of so inland - or there would be massive vegetation kills from the salt reaching far inland. But having visited coastal areas after hurricanes, and only saw salt-damaged vegetation near the beach.
While cloud droplets condensing and rain falling through the air will pick up soluble pollutants (like s02 does in acid rain and acid fog), I suspect that the amount of organic compounds would have to be so impossibly high concentrated to become dissolved to any degree in the water.
Obviously in the case of a tornado or waterspout, it can rain oil, but how often or widespread is that going to be.
Why isn't the rain from a hurricane or other storm at sea salty?
Sabo, salt is an ionic mineral compound. Solvents and dispersants are a different animal entirely. Would like to hear the opinion of someone who actually studies these things. I've heard anecdotal reports of oily rain, but would like to know the mechanism or possible mechanism behind it. The truth is all that matters, not what one believes about it one way or another.
Obama is clearly protecting the interests of BP, which come first to him. I used to be on the fence as to whether Obama was more weak than evil, or more evil than weak. The answer is evident to me now. He is SOOO much more dangerous than Bush because of his smooth style and pretense of caring for the general public. Bush, on the other hand, was relatively clear about who's interests he was serving. The lesser-evilists who still apologize for Obama better wake up and smell the coffee. Alas, it may already be too late with respect to this ecological disaster. If oil mixed dispersant does show up in the rain, Obama and BP will be in for the ride of their lives, and I promise you, it won't be joy ride.
After watching those rapacious rat-bastards Bush and Cheney perform their dirty little tricks for 8 years, I have developed a pretty reliable sense of intuition on what is really going on in the Gulf:
Bet the ranch on my following conclusions:
First, the ruling elite are pulling Obama's strings - and he is more than happy to oblige them.
Second, the massive influx of Corexit 9500 is no accident - the ability for this nasty stuff to get into our "weather system" and affect all of us is something I researched and verified about month ago. I believe this is not only possible, but likely - IF the leak(s) are allowed to persist unabated and the spill eventually works it way up the east coast. Thank Obama and EPA head Carol Browner for the favor.
Third, Obama sent a team of scientists, including his Energy Secretary Stephen Choo and the co-inventor of the H-bomb to the Gulf within two weeks of the April 20th explosion to assess the damage. They would not have done so if Obama was not made quickly aware of the fact there was at least one other huge leak out there that was not fixable by conventional means. My conclusion here is that the nuclear option is still on the table and probably already approved because is it the only thing that could work. Remember, in his recent speech to the nation, Obama said he will have the leak(s) 90% contained by the end of August - why would he say such a thing if he didn't already have a "fix" in the can?
Fourth, the big question here is this: if he already has a plan to fix the leak(s), why on earth is he going to wait for two more months? Obviously, because that will be enough time for the slick to wind its way up the eastern seaboard and trigger a sequence of dominos that will bring the economy to its knees.
Can you imaging being a fly on the wall in some dark secret meeting among the ruling elites several weeks ago once they realized that the Gulf spill could be orchestrated to do what they had hoped that H1N1 virus would do?
BP screwed-up, but only Obama was in a position to really do something about this thing - that insidious little bastard!
Now, I'm going back outside to finish painting my house - I'm determined to die in style.
The disaster turned much worse when BP was allowed to stay in control. I can only conclude that Obama and many other politicians are being held hostage by these criminals. In a just world, BP would be in receivership and all it assets seized, pending the result of an investigation. Also, the EPA, NOAA, and Universities would be put in charge of making measurement and recommendations for solutions. BP would be strictly supervised and directed, rather than supervising and giving direction. I wonder if Obama even has clue what his coming his way; if he does, perhaps he believes he can protect himself and/or cover his ass. If so, he is delusional.
"Obama and many other politicians are being held hostage by these criminals..."
Obama and the other pols underwent Stockholm Syndrome decades ago, and are now enthusiastic little Patty Hearsts.
An even better analogy would be that they have joined Charles Manson's 'Family'...
Non Serviam - I will not serve.
There is also The Iran Card to consider.
The USA and Isreal are itching to attack Iran. This might well lead to the closing of the Persian Gulf and a partial shut down of Saudi Oil exports.
This could well last years.
While Canada and Venezuala are the US'as largest sources of oil imports, a drop in Oil from the Middle East woyuld put tremendous upwards pressure on the price of oil.
In such a scenario the Gulf Oil will be seen as a "strategic asset" thus the drilling MUST go on and as rapidly as possible.
Remember this. In WWii Standard oil was selling Oil THROUGHOUT the War to the Nazis. They were using third parties to do so such as selling the Oil to a neutral country wherein said country would then tranship the Oil to the Nazis.
Roosevelt threatened then with fines under the trading with the enemy act. The execs at Standard oil told him to take a hike indicating if they were fined they would SHUT DOWN production thus crippling the US war machine.
Roosevelt backed down.
Yes - I agree - the fact that the oil accummulating in the Gulf could be exploited as strategic asset makes perfect sense - that would further explain their primitive behavior here.
For less what we have spent so far trying to plug the BP leak and the resulting clean-up, we could have funding the construction of a huge production facility to mass produce electric vehicle batteries at reasonable costs. We could have been well on our way of replacing the horribly inefficient internal combustion engine with the extremely efficient non-polluting EV. We could reduce our consumption of oil by almost half and eliminated our dependency on foreign oil. We could be well on our way to replacing petroleum based electricity generation with renewable energy. Why do we so stubbornly resist this so obvious solution to our problems?
Because Big Oil says “We want to be your energy supplier and we can supply you with cleaner energy.”
What they want to do is to use natural gas made from methane mined from the bottom of the ocean floor.
The National Methane Hydrates R&D program which is conducted by the Department of Energy in the National Energy Technology Laboratory backed by all of the major oil companies and other big Wall Street Investment Corporations has backed BP in an exploratory drilling operation in the Gulf of Mexico not twenty miles from the current leak. What is it going to take to wake-up and stop these guys?
Gee, Phrrron, the only thing standing in the way of your techno-toy nirvana is a little thing called 'resource scarcity'.
The very elements needed to build all those electric cars are in increasingly short supply. The largest source of the exotic metals needed to mate the batteries and motors for the electric car is China, and they are starting to get jumpy about a domestic supply for their own use, let alone exports.
Add to that the fact that if you want the EC to be efficient, it has to be light, and that means plastic, and that means OIL!
As a super bonus plus, where do you get the electricity? Oh, that's right, a generating station. Either hydroelectric dam, coal or natural gas burning, or nuclear. Hmm. And to build all of them you have to use megatons of fossil fuels.
Every single 'renewable' energy project is dependent upon fossil fuels for it's extraction, refining, manufacture and transportation.
The only way off this insane ride is to ABANDON IT! And I don't exactly see as rush for the exits to implement that idea, do I?
Non Serviam - I will not serve.
While it is true that fossil fuels are required to "bootstrap" renewable development, once established, the energy for renewable development can be be largely powered by renewables. Steel furnaces can and are electrified, even open-pit mines can and some are are largely electrified and probably even cement manufacture can be electrified. Even electrified agriculture is a possibility - think of electric tractors and combines operating on center pivot electric distribution like are already used for irrigation.
But I share the skepticism of using electric cars as a long-term solution. Better to rebuild cities on a car-free model and accrue all the other quality of life benefits of a car-free urban environment. But that will take time, and personal cars and trucks will always be needed in rural areas. So for now, electric car development is a good idea.
Of course, fat chance of movement toward any of the above stuff.
Gee, Galenwainwright, as you take your own advice, and "ABANDON IT", do you have some cool stuff to sell cheap? Like a car, computer, cell phone, shoes, etc?
It's all or nothing right?
Thanks, I'll watch for the listing.
"Why do we so stubbornly resist this so obvious solution to our problems?"
Electric vehicles are not any solution - let alone an "obvious solution." When you advance to the next step in your critical thinking process, you may be released from your addiction to a personal, private, motorized vehicle. Then again, you may not.
"China has 9 cars for every 1000 drivers. India has 11 cars for every 1000 drivers. The U.S. has 1114 cars for every 1000 drivers." From Iain Carson and Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran, 'Zoom: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future', 2007.
Reading 'The Ecological Effects of Roads' at
http://www.eco-action.org/dt/roads.html is also a good place to start.
Sounds serious. But wait, there's more, 'cause just after Jesus drops from a chemtrail with fire pouring out of his eyes and all GLBT pagan/liberal/heathen/unbeliever heads explode... never mind, pass me another beer.
LOL! me too! but it was worth it not to have to spend eternity on my knees thanking his wisdom for the wonderful exsistance he created. :)
>^^<
i really appreciate the way dem libs are snidely dismissive of "apocalyptic" fears of average joes & janes. the obama admin has been lying from day one about this, there is practically a media blackout about "what's really going on," the gulf is toast, no one knows what corexit is going to do to the environment, yet these peoples' fears that corps & gov'ts that have been destroying their lives for a long time are now about to do/cause something "apocalyptic", somehow this fear is "irrational"?
clue phone for Morford: why not call up the good folks from bhopal, india, or nigeria, or iraq, or any number of other places, and ask them:
is the US gov't and/or a major oil corp capable of bringing "apocalyptic" destruction to your person/family/country? Morford might find his smug & comfortable grin quickly wiped from his face w/the millions and millions of people answering a resounding YES.
I'm afraid my humor's off on this topic right now...watching large portions of my world die isn't funny to me...
Is anyone getting in boats and going out into the Gulf Stream along the Atlantic seaboard to look for oil within the depths? At ~100 miles a day, the Gulf Stream could already have delivered submerged oil quite a distance...
Where are the plumes now?
Last Friday, I read that the plumes were at St. Augustine, Florida, which is almost all the way up the Eastern coast of Florida. Some fishermen reported seeing the plumes, and then, someone reported it in the comments section of one of the CD threads. This week, though, I have been searching for an update, but I haven't haven't run across any.
I think it was Anne Faith who supplied some links last week to the news of the plumes.
Like you, dubet, I'm not able to laugh.
NOBODY... from now on your poetry will be written in blood.
William Blake
Just hunting, fishing, growing and gathering a little food, living simply with earth with the Tribe.'
I appreciate the sentiment. However, frankly, if a mega city, say the population of Mexico City decided to all run to the local rivers and streams and follow your advice, I wouldn't actually want to live downstream.
You missed my point entirely. I apologize for being sub human, as I'm not part of your tribe. I forgot to push the Birth Me Into a Tribe Button, as I was floating in the Great Ether.
You are embarrassing yourself.
Did you at least cash the Casino Check? So we made a hash of it, at least we tried, and for awhile it was something to behold. Then like all people who thought they could control everything we kept at it till something blew up in our faces. Theres probabily more dead planets than ones that made it past this tinkering stage. I just hope we leave good records for whatever comes after us, evolved cats or cockroaches or whatever..
I only hope they pay closer attention then we did. after all the hints are all around in Samaria, Egypt, the quiter corners it's literally written in stone. But nobody wanted to hear it.
So good luck to the next owners of the rock we called Earth.
>^^<
Your jab about a casino check is inconsiderate: whites destroyed the indigenous way of life, corralled them unto "reservations" with treaties that the US was to provide them with provisions that they may not starve in exchange for the natives to desist from their traditional life styles which meant giving up land unto which they hunted, gathered and fished. These treaties were not kept.
You state "so we made a hash of it, at least we tried..."--yes, and this does not mean getting off the hook for a fundamental law of nature is cause and effect. But exactly what did "we try"? Poisoning the earth, creating untold human misery so a minority can have more than they need?? Something to behold?? Are the shiny electrified cities to be compared to the milky way??
"Owners of the rock Earth"? No-it is WE who are owned by Life.
LOL :) well played.
>^^<
all thats missing is the tear ;)