Paul Daugherty: I believe we are insane

Friday, March 07, 2008

I believe we are insane

I'm listening/watching/monitoring the snow at my palatial estate NE of downtown. I am left with the impression that if I don't make the 15-minute drive from said estate to the radio station by noon, I'll need sled dogs and reindeer to get me there by 6.

For some reason, I believe the hype.

275 at Wards Corner... clear!
71 South... clear!!
Montgomery Road... clear!!!

I'm at the station by, um, 1220.

A few things about snow:
When you drive in it, assume everyone else driving in it can't drive.
Do not brake unless you have to.
Do not slow down going up a hill.
Do not stop going up a hill.
Do not listen to the radio or the TV before you go out, unless it's playing music or test patterns.

As for the Global Warming freaks... please deliver my pizza to the radio station at 9 tonight when, if warnings of the apocalypse hold, I will be spending the night, globally warmed by 10 inches of snow. I will be hungry. When you arrive, you can explain to me why it's called Green-land, what's bad about longer growing seasons in northern climates and open shipping lanes where there used to be impassable ice. Because I am the tiniest bit skeptical about melting icecaps, or at least about the catastrophically rising ocean levels guaranteed to drown us all, please show me the data indicating rising water levels in, say, New York harbor, or on the beaches in, I dunno, South Carolina. Then prove to me, beyond reasonable doubt, how all of it owes to greenhouse gases and such.

Meantime, be careful out there. It's heck handling a vee-hicle in all that Warmth.

47 Comments:

at 5:19 PM

Scott Evans said...

Paul,

I'm surprised you'd be able to write such blasphemy! After all the Global Warmingists (it is a religion, their main tenant, There is no truth but Man Made/Controled Global Wamring and Al Gore is the prophet(or profit as he sells "carbon credits").

I hope your office is away from Borgman as he has become a believer in this new religion/cult.

In other words thank you for actually making sense on this issue. Also I just read that 2007 was the coolest year for the earth since 1949 and that we are actually probably headed towards another ice age.

at 7:27 PM

Unknown said...

Paul, you are right. It's cold and snowing during the winter, so global warming must be a sham. Thanks for enlightening me. You better pen that column before Peter Bronson beats you to it!

at 7:29 PM

Anonymous said...

Just back from Kroger's. The only thing left was sushi and sunscreen, so I stocked up. Then almost tripped on the bags of rock salt stacked up by the door.

Looks like no golf tomorrow.

at 8:25 PM

Anonymous said...

Here's a brain-teaser... If you could choose to never hear another word from either.. George Bush or Al Gore, which would you choose?

at 8:42 PM

Anonymous said...

Jeff,

I'll remember your logic when it's 95 degrees in July and the global warming crowd is flapping its gums. I might even apply it on a blog somewhere. Maybe I'll sound as brilliant as you.

Meantime, thanks, Doc, for seeing the global warming crowd for what it is, and not being afraid to articulate it. Come over here to central Indiana, where a TV weatherbabe boldly predicted "one to nine" inches of snow. We might have half-an-inch to this point.

Adam in Anderson

at 10:56 PM

Anonymous said...

My favorite in the "white death" dilema is watching the local weather stations. I kid you not they had some poor woman reporting from outside on the "veranda" this afternoon...snow flying sticking to her eyebrows, eyelashes, and she is squinting and it is just the most assinine thing they can do...report the d#mn weather from inside when it's snowing.

at 8:14 AM

Marica said...

Paul--

Thank you for this bit of sanity (and proper grammar, mostly). Willie Nelson said it best in the introduction to "Where's the show/Let me be a man": THERE IS GREAT CONFUSION ON EARTH.

Marica

at 10:16 AM

Anonymous said...

this is the reason why so many intelligent people leave cincinnati when they grow up, this stick your head in the sand, know nothing-ism, these people who find bill cunningham amusing, who defend marge schott's racism, who vote for neanderthals like jeanne schmidt. now you, mr daugherty. it's not about global warming, its about drastic climate change in general. just because you don't understand something, try learning about it, rather than braying like a snide dumb donkey. no wonder more sophisticated people like ken griffey jr don't want to let you into their world.

at 10:32 AM

Anonymous said...

What you don't understand, Paul, is that things are so bad that global warming has caused everything to reverse. I'm serious.

We have terrible winters and record cold because of the earth out of balance because of warming. Don't let things like thermometers and opposing so-called scientists with PhDs twist your mind. Don't trust your senses and your logic. They don't understand this reversal.

Heat causes cold. It's a fact. You can prove it yourself with an air conditioner. To get the cold you have to blow off heat. Put your hand on it and you can tell.

So the colder it gets and the icier it gets and the more polar it gets is exactly the time you should be worrying about great amounts of heat combining to be cold.

And what happens to heat once you release it? Well, it cools down, doesn't it!!

at 10:39 AM

Anonymous said...

Seems Paul is filtering his blog responses now. So brave of you big boy. I just lost all respect for you.

BTW, what McDonald's did you dash off to this morning during the Level 3 emergency to get that hot cup of joe?

at 10:51 AM

Paul Daugherty said...

1039... let's be clear on something... I don't delete posts that have something relevant and/or intelligent to say. I welcome them, even if they happen to differ from mine. I see no need to accept the words of every bomb-thrower who uses this space to tell me what an idiot I am. By the way, in a previous post, I asked for reasons why longer growing seasons in northern climes are a bad thing. No answers. Formerly ice-blocked water routes opening up: Bad? No answers. Beach erosion beyond the norm, directly attributable to melting icecaps? No answers. Greenland wasnt named by the Vikings because it was covered in snow and with glaciers. No response. In fact, the only folks who responded sensibly and without name-calling were those who agreed with me. So really, if you want to know why I declined your post, it was because it didnt add to the conversation. Do better next time. Better yet, start your own blog.

at 10:52 AM

Anonymous said...

Paul,
You're a good writer but asking the Global Warming folks to prove to you beyond a reasonable doubt that there is warming and then that greenhouse gas has aided it is setting the bar rather high considering that you're a sports writer without a science education. It's not as easy as your mechanic saying your brake pads are about shot and then showing you the thin brake pads.
I'm sure that some very smart people work at the Creation Museum and yet they have looked at the same evidence the rest of us have and still come to a different conclusion. As smart as you are, I doubt you have the background to interpret complex climate data. Maybe ya gotta have a little faith...

at 2:19 PM

Anonymous said...

Two guys in a car without a gas gauge.
Guy 1: Dude, we should stop for some gas soon. We've been driving a while.
Guy 2: We don't need gas. The car's running fine.
G1: The engine burns gas right? Eventually it'll run out.
G2: I see no evidence of that. The car's running fine.

Half hour later, they coast to the side of the road.

G1: See, I told you we should get more gas.
G2: Let's not leap to conclusions. The alternator or carburetor or gas pump could have malfunctioned. In fact, there are so many possibilities, it is irresponsible to speculate. I think you have some ulterior motive to immediately think it is a gas problem.

at 2:41 PM

Anonymous said...

Paul,

In response to your statement, "the only folks who responded sensibly and without name-calling were those who agreed with me," I'd like to point out that you yourself began the "name calling" by referring to Al Gore as "ozone man" and continued it by calling those who disagreed with your opinion "freaks." The wholly level-headed responses you refer to from those who agreed with you also called Al Gore "Owl Gore" and compared the belief in global warming to the belief in Big Foot for starters. Your whole tone denegrates anyone who disagrees with you. Seems a tad hypocritical to me.

As for your challenge, I for one am not a scientist and I don't have a strong opinion either way on the issue. Like most other issues, however, I suspect the real answer lies somewhere in middle between the "polar opposites" of opinion (sorry for the pun).

Just for grins I'll throw these thoughts out for you to mock. First, I'm not sure where you're going with the whole Greenland thing. It's known that Erik the Red so named the inhospitable area to attract settlers from the more suitable Iceland to join him after he'd been banished for murder. Historical accounts estimate there could've been up to 3,000 settlers on Greenland for a time but they vanished.

As for how the benefits of global warming (that you first implied doesn't exist by joking about how many inches of global warming were piling up on your driveway) are such a bad thing, I suppose it depends upon what part of the globe you find yourself habitating. Those in the already harsh environments that seem to be getting worse (such as drought stricken Africa for instance) might not be so "cheery" about things as you seem to be. Just a thought.

Thanks for listening. If I can't contribute to your blog anytime soon I apoligize. I'm gonna be busy for a while starting up my own blog. Ha, ha.

at 2:42 PM

stucky said...

"We have terrible winters and record cold because of the earth out of balance because of warming."?!?!?! - um, there is something called averages, if the temps both increase in the summer and decrease in the winter the average temperature will still be near the same, and it's the increase in the average the causes OVERALL warming - keep twisting yourself into knots.

"Heat causes cold. It's a fact. You can prove it yourself with an air conditioner. To get the cold you have to blow off heat. Put your hand on it and you can tell."?!?!?! - that's called a heat exchange, and the heat is removed from the enclosed room that is being cooled...is there a giant heat exchange unit on the Moon?

great googly-moogly

at 4:37 PM

Anonymous said...

Paul:

You can't make fun of the new religion of man-made global warming. You will be attacked as a "denier" and burned at the stake for being close-minded.

To understand man-made global warming, you have to be aware of the following facts:

1. The Sun has NO EFFECT on the climate of the Earth.

2. The fact that Mars is also warming up is entirely due to CO2 emissions coming from the Earth and "sticking" to Mars.

3. The climate on Earth NEVER changed prior to the arrival of man--it only began changing when the industrial age began--we have proof of this because of "special thermometers" that were placed on the Earth at the Dawn of Time that we have secretly been monitoring for years--in fact, these thermometers are SO accurate that they can record the average temperature of the Earth to within 1/10th of a degree--they were made by very intelligent extraterrestrial life that we have yet to discover or describe.

4. The fact that we cannot predict the weather 2 days from now is the product of a special project to keep panic low when science pronounces the cause of the next global disaster.

5. Every scientist in the world agrees that man-made global warming is REAL--a special survey of the half-billion scientist currently working worldwide in various disciplines has proved this.

6. And, finally, it can be revealed that a series of special "alternate Earths" have been manufactured within our solar system and studied as a controls--this was truly an amazing project, since the number of variables in these experiments were well into the thousands (the expense was tremendous...this project was also initiated at the Dawn of Time by extraterrestrial life forms).

See how much there is out there that you were unaware of!

Hope this changes your perspective!

at 6:07 PM

Paul Daugherty said...

241... you're way too easy, Ozone Man.

at 8:58 PM

Anonymous said...

You all need to buy a sense of humor >> your Simon-Leis model isn't working.

at 11:48 PM

Anonymous said...

Paul this is 241. . . and I know you're not going to post this, I just want to get under your skin one more time. It's a new hobby of mine. Seems like I'm really getting to you. "You're too easy" is the sad cliche of a losing argument. The judges gave me that round unanimously. I recommend you stick to sports. You're way out of your league when you stray. Peace.

P.S. We missed you at the X game tonight. The roads were fine, you should've joined us.

at 12:39 AM

Anonymous said...

Take the global warming test:

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/GlobWarmTest/start.html

at 10:48 AM

Anonymous said...

I just want to get under your skin one more time. It's a new hobby of mine. Seems like I'm really getting to you. "You're too easy" is the sad cliche of a losing argument. The judges gave me that round unanimously.

Ever notice how just saying something doesn't make it factual?

Looks to me like 437 has some decent points....

at 7:10 PM

Anonymous said...

12:39 > thanks for the "Global Warming Test" website.
I could relate to question 3 because 50 years ago, my parents took me to Watkins Glen, NY where I first learned that only 12,000 years ago, NY State was covered by a mile thick sheet of ICE.
Think where we'd be today if it weren't for Global Warming.

at 10:16 PM

Brian said...

While I do believe the Global Warming camp has sensationalized their argument, especially when showing animated sad polar bears swimming helplessly in the ocean, I still find merit in the argument. Logically, the things we emit into the environment will effect it. Basic cause and effect. Humans have been shown to severely effect their environment. The desert we are fighting a war in wasn't once called the fertile crescent for nothing. The dust bowl didn't just happen. It seems naive to think that emitting tons of pollutants into the air will not have an effect.

Fact: with increased industrialization there has been an increase in greenhouse gases, while it's true that the planet goes through cycles, it would be very coincidental for the two to correlate as well as they do. Maybe it is coincidence, but it's worth being wary of.

Opening up frozen shipping lanes and creating arable land aren't bad things in the short term but as indicators for a larger climate shift they are troubling. The planet will be fine if it warms up, but many species including humans could suffer from it. While Canada might see its GDP increase what happens to already dry arid lands? What happens to coastal cities? It's a worldwide change, and will effect areas differently. Which corresponds closely with my next point. Cincinnati is not as important as you or I would like to believe. A bad winter here is just a blip on the global climate scheme. Besides, trends happen over years, and one colder year doesn't mean the trend is no longer a trend. I've seen pictures of people skating on frozen neighborhood ponds and walking across the Ohio River, but it hasn't happened in my life time.

Oh and I recall hearing that while Greenland isn't very green, Iceland isn't very icy. Now I don't know how much I should believe the Mighty Ducks 2, but so far they haven't steered me wrong. I know I haven't been to either country, but maybe a well traveled journalist like yourself could shut me up.

at 10:17 PM

Gweedoh said...

Paul and anti-"Global Warmingists",

Here's the current definitive/international/collaborative summary on climate change as put together by hundreds of scientists/policy makers the world over:

http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-syr.htm

The summary: climate change IS happening, IS caused by man, IS going be have really negative consequences overall.

Skepticism can be good and healthy, but in this case you're being skeptical about something that is very very very well studied and proven.

This isn't a religion, it's fact.

at 7:21 AM

Anonymous said...

GloBull warming?

Adolph Hitler said if you repeat a lie often enough people will begin to believe it. It's hogwash. Nothing more.

It's more and more difficult to find sane statements out of any media so thank you Paul.

By the way, the founder of the Weather Channel calls it the greatest scam in history. Don't believe me? Google it.

at 8:49 AM

Anonymous said...

Checked out Gweedoh's website reference just for laughs. Among many hilarous tidbits >> the ocean is rising at the rate of 1 inch every 10 years.
So my condo won't be oceanfront until sometime around 2808.

at 9:24 AM

Unknown said...

Gweedoh, 7:21, 8:49 -

Excerpt trom the US Senate EPW Minority blog of Sen Inhofe. Go here for remainder of article:

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=C9554887-802A-23AD-4303-68F67EBD151C

‘IPCC is unsound'

UN IPCC reviewer and climate researcher Dr. Vincent Gray of New Zealand, an expert reviewer on every single draft of the IPCC reports since its inception going back to 1990, had a clear message to UN participants.

"There is no evidence that carbon dioxide increases are having any effect whatsoever on the climate," Gray, who shares in the Nobel Prize awarded to the UN IPCC, explained. (LINK)

"All the science of the IPCC is unsound. I have come to this conclusion after a very long time. If you examine every single proposition of the IPCC thoroughly, you find that the science somewhere fails," Gray, who wrote the book "The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of "Climate Change 2001," said.

"It fails not only from the data, but it fails in the statistics, and the mathematics," he added.

at 9:38 AM

Anonymous said...

7:21
Do you usually reference weathermen who got their weatherman's degree in '57 when you are in a discussion about the climate. Do you even understand the fundamental difference? I'll go to a NASA climatologist before a weatherman if I want to learn more than "Take along your umbrella, just in case.".
Also, since when did the conservatives decide that good policy is to make a mess or ignore a mess and leave it to the next generation. The National Debt and Climate Change are just two examples.
Is it conservative when the short-term benefits of any issue accrue mainly to us and where the dangers of them are largely put off until future generations.

One more thing. Why does the argument always change? There is no warming. There is warming, but it's not caused by man. Then, there is warming and man has contributed, but it means nothing in the short or long run. And finally, there is warming, man has contributed and it means something in the long run but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it because America has never met a challenge it can't conquer.

at 12:17 PM

Gweedoh said...

ucfan79,

First off, just so you know where I'm coming from, I'm a grad student in natural resources, so I've heard all the arguments. That's the problem with debates like this- one or two dissidents make bold contrary claims, and the entire public believes that the scientific community is split 50:50 on the issue when the reality is that probably 95% of scientists agree with the general conclusions of the IPCC report.

Also, 8:49, not sure my link compares in any way in terms of humor with the "Global Warming Test" that 12:49 linked. Those questions are grossly misleading and tell only a fraction of the story.

I agree that images of drowning polar bears are pathetic attempts to get sympathy for the cause, but I can't understand why some of you- Paul included - are so incredibly defensive about the idea of Global Warming...why do you treat it as a personal attack?

at 1:54 PM

Anonymous said...

Wow, so the planet is coming out of an ice age, and is currently warming up? That sounds strange... Just for fun, somebody should look up and see just how much of the "greenhouse" gasses that are put into the atmostphere are man-made.

at 2:30 PM

Anonymous said...

What a can of worms you've opened. I see big things in your future. Could it be "Hannity, Doc & Colmes" (Colmes always getting last billing on Fox of course), The "Doc and Imus Show" (just sounds better that way), or perhaps "Meet the Press with Tim Russert and Paul Daugherty" (. . . today Tim interviews Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Paul gives his hard-biting commentary, "Steroid Use in Congress: the Growing Menace")?

Like conservatives love to say to Hollywood (leaving out Ronald Reagan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Chuck Norris, Charlton Heston, Tom Selleck, Ben Stein, Fred Thompson, etc, etc, etc, of course): stay out of politics, we don't care what you think. Please, keep it to sports from now on. I for one don't want to know what your political views are. I just want to know how you think the Reds are going to do this year. Okay?

at 3:48 PM

grant owens said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

at 4:18 PM

Anonymous said...

We are slowly getting better data that is less speculative and based on empirical evidence (ice cores 4:37, not alien thermometers). I can’t see any harm in studying our environment more.

Dude--I assume you hold a post-graduate degree in some scientific discipline (as I do). Lesson 1 in statistics is that correlation IS NOT causality:

1. It can be statistically shown that communities with more churches have more crimes per year. This correlation is well documented.

2. One might conclude (based on these data alone) that organized religion causes crime.

3. The error in this thinking is that it does not take into account a 3rd factor that effects both variables: population. Hence this correlation, while real, is not causal.

It's the same with CO2 and climate change--correlation MAY exist (all the data have yet to be analyzed), but causality has not been shown, except in computer models (unless you know of a "model Earth" I am unaware of).

One of the primary errors laymen make when exposed to scientific data is to OVER-CONCLUDE based on the evidence available. Data are only ABSOLUTELY applicable in a controlled experiment--there is no model that is sufficient to control for all the variables involved in the Earth's climate--only correlations that contain the data the investigators choose to include.

I would err on the side of preserving our economy, rather than relegate the U.S. to 3rd world status on an unproven hypothesis. That would amount to scientific malpractice.

at 4:48 PM

Unknown said...

Gweedoh,

Galileo was the minority report, too, if I recall correctly.

Galileo was virtually alone, but in this instance there is a huge group of scientists in the actual fields in question who disagree.

At a minimum, that means that the idea of man-made destruction via CO2 is not one to rush off and make drastic decisions over. I should not be paying special taxes, buying carbon credits, or giving up freedoms over a HYPOTHESIS (NOT really even at the level of theory) that is of recent origin, significantly disputed, incredibly politicized, 100's of years off before it impacts, and prone to financial & political exploitation by demagogues.

Having multiple graduate degrees myself, I appreciate that you are pursuing education in managing the environment and its fields and forests.

We both are doing better than Al Gore who flunked out of Vanderbilt's graduate divinity school and its law school.

"In 1971, Gore enrolled in Vanderbilt Divinity School where, according to Bill Turque, author of "Inventing Al Gore," he received F's in five of the eight classes he took over the course of three semesters. Not surprisingly, Gore did not receive a degree from the divinity school. Nor did Gore graduate from Vanderbilt Law School, where he enrolled for a brief time and received his fair share of C's. "

at 5:07 PM

grant owens said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

at 7:58 PM

Anonymous said...

Global Warming, Iraq War, Ethanol....

We put tremendous resources (& lives) into something we don't understand ..... because it's politically expedient.

Guess that's democracy.

at 8:03 PM

Anonymous said...

PDaug, I suspect you're sitting back with a Keystone and having a good laugh over this "controversy".

at 8:03 PM

Anonymous said...

What's a Gweedoh?

at 8:23 PM

Anonymous said...

4:18
I loved this line, "I would err on the side of preserving our economy."
Hmm, you mean like not annually sending billions and billions of dollars to a region of the world just to secure our massive amounts of oil consumption. You mean like not spending what now looks like trillions of dollars (and American soldiers lives, in that same region for essentially the same reason? You mean like not borrowing that money from a country that many believe will be our next economic and possibly military foe?

at 11:01 PM

Gweedoh said...

8:03, a Gweedoh, as defined by Webster's, is "an avid Reds fan who in the future will avoid getting into arguments about climate change on sports blogs; a mispelling of "gooey-dough"; see picture here: http://www.ac-nancy-metz.fr/enseign/anglais/Henry/throw_up.jpg"

Also, this is kind of irrelevant, but, UCfan, it's my non-fact-checked understanding that pretty much all astronomers agreed with heliocentricism at the time but that Galileo was the only one willing to stand up against the catholic church. Possibly still applicable, I suppose.

at 9:55 AM

Anonymous said...

Hmm, you mean like not annually sending billions and billions of dollars to a region of the world just to secure our massive amounts of oil consumption. You mean like not spending what now looks like trillions of dollars (and American soldiers lives, in that same region for essentially the same reason? You mean like not borrowing that money from a country that many believe will be our next economic and possibly military foe?

Let's see...I don't support Ron Paul--I believe in free trade, and I'm not an anti-Semite (hard to believe we had an anti-Semite running for the GOP nomination, but , so be it, every party has lunatics).

Next...I'm all for getting off foreign oil...but environmental activists will not let us mobilize the massive resources we sit on top of, so we HAVE to depend on foreign oil--They've done the same with nuclear power.

What alternatives are we left with?

Shiver in the dark?

Sorry, that's not for me. I'd like to see a program of domestic energy production which utilizes 3 main tenets:

1. Produce more of our own (domestic) energy.
2. Conservation--where it's reasonable.
3. Improved environmental clean-up technology (not simply shutting down energy producers).

If you like biofuels--fine, but you have to realize that there are transportation costs associated with ethanol that are not found with oil (you can't put ethanol in a pipeline). In addition, corn-fueled ethanol is definitely not the way to go, as it screws up the grain markets tremendously. You also have to realize that ethanol is not nearly as efficient a fuel as the hydrocarbons obtained from oil (it's more oxidized, and produces fewer BTU/gram--thus, less power generated/unit volume).

If you are big on hybrids--great! But you have to realize that the "electric" half of the hybrid is (in most cases) ultimately fueled by...coal--another fossil fuel. So why not cut out the middleman and generate liquid fuel directly from coal? We did it in WWII and it worked quite well...

Believe me--I hate the fact that we are not energy independent--there is no reason the U.S. couldn't be energy independent--except for the lack of political will to do so...

Put that in your windmill and spin it (if you can get enough power out of it!).

at 1:23 PM

Anonymous said...

Considering that we get so much oil from Canada and Mexico, NAFTA makes some sense. There is no such thing as free trade though. That's just a name for a trade agreement. We only get 13% or so of our oil from Saudi Arabia, seems like a lot of overhead added to the Saudi oil (re:trillions). We don't seem to have that overhead price for the 11% of oil we get from Venezuela or the 10% we get from Nigeria.
And if you're going to start on the independence deal to make a play for ANWAR well I've always assumed we'll have to drill there at some point but if the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was used to meet 100% of U.S. demand, it would last for 215 days under the low estimate, and 525 days or just 1.4 years if it contained 10.4 billion barrels, the high estimate.
You're recommendations seem painless and like someone said above, a 'push off the painful decisions until after I'm gone' solution. How you like the inheritance now, kids?
And still, those loans from China may come back to bite while you're still alive. Oops.
I see it as a technology challenge. We lead on world technology then we lead the world. (By the way, corn into gas is a political pay-off to early primary states). Sputnik went up in '57. Kennedy said in '61 we'd have a man on the moon by the end of the decade and in '69 we did.
Are you afraid of a challenge now? How weak we have become. Our 42" plasma screens have made us cowards and we will leave the mess for the next generation. Lovely attitude. I don't think it's a conservative but it certainly is something.

By the way, Paul, I love sports blogs.

at 2:01 PM

Anonymous said...

It appears blogger ate my last response.
Short version. We only get 12% of our oil from Saudi Arabia yet we are paying trillions to the region. That's quite some overhead considering we get 11% from Venezuela and 11% from Nigeria without the extra trillion dollar overhead. Not to mention Canada and Mexico where NAFTA even lowers the overhead more.
Sputnik went up in '57. Kennedy said in '62, we'll put a man on the moon by the end of the decade and we did in '69.
I see our energy and climate challenges as ones of technology. If we lead in the tech then we lead in the world.
Your energy plan seems to require little effort and less vision unless you're leading your argument to ANWAR but if the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was used to meet 100% of U.S. demand, it would last for 215 days under the low estimate, and 525 days or just 1.4 years if it contained 10.4 billion barrels. Not a solution.
Like someone said above, you are offering to push off the pain and innovation efforts to future generations. "How you like that inheritance kids? By the way, I got mine. Ha ha."
Have 42" plasma screens made us weak and afraid?

at 2:03 PM

Anonymous said...

Oh and I forgot to mention, that debt to China may come back to bite us while we're still kicking and before the kids take over. Oops.

at 10:35 PM

Anonymous said...

Paul, You have affirmed your original post > "we are insane".
Congrats!

at 11:57 PM

Anonymous said...

And if you're going to start on the independence deal to make a play for ANWAR well I've always assumed we'll have to drill there at some point but if the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was used to meet 100% of U.S. demand, it would last for 215 days under the low estimate, and 525 days or just 1.4 years if it contained 10.4 billion barrels, the high estimate.

Let's see--

1. The payoff with ANWAR is not so much the oil--it's the natural gas (estimates are quite large). The lion's share of oil reserves we sit atop are offshore and in shale oil--enough fuel to offset the Saudi contribution for 100 years (provided we actually start producing it).

2. We have more coal than you can shake a stick at--enough for 10 generations--no import cost, and extremely energy-rich. Locally, Hatfield is a major distributor (same Hatfield family as the Hatfield/McCoy feud incidentally!).

3. Nuclear would alleviate virtually all home energy cost from fossil fuel, at a fraction of the current cost--just have to start making plants (we've got plenty of fissionable material).

4. If you kick up nuclear, then you can make hybrids practical--cheap electricity means the hybrid becomes affordable to operate--thus adding to fossil fuel conservation without much of an impact on living standards.

5. Finally--job creation linked to each of these endeavors would help offset the dreaded national debt.

The other options, while interesting, won't take place in a short enough time frame to be practical as panaceas--fusion is decades away, wind and solar don't have enough kick, and hydrogen cells won't be cost effective without cheap electricity.

Of course--we could always needlessly shiver in the dark!

at 7:36 AM

Unknown said...

Gweedoh,

Most were Aristotelian, therefore earth-centric. They'd refined it a bit to a model that had everything except the earth and moon revolving around the sun. The sun & everything else revolved around the earth and moon. (Brahe's model, I think.)

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Friday, March 07, 2008

I believe we are insane

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