Global warming is now
Thu Feb 02, 2006 at 07:50:16 PM PDT
I've known global warming was real for a long time now, but I always accepted the "official" line that it was gradual. Sure, the earth's climate would change, but it would happen so slowly that I wouldn't notice the changes. My grandkids, maybe, but not me.
I've changed my mind. Global warming is now.
Does Bush know about peak oil?
Tue Jan 31, 2006 at 04:00:08 PM PDT
I've always wondered how much George W. Bush knows about peak oil. Matthew Simmons, author of
Twilight In the Desert, says he's warned the president about it. But did he understand? Back in November, Jim Kunstler
reported that he cornered Simmons at a conference and asked him how Bush reacted to being told about peak oil. Simmons replied that Bush's reaction was "curious incomprehension."
Today, there's a report in the Dallas Morning News that suggests that Bush now understands.
Death by a thousand (oil) cuts
Sun Jan 22, 2006 at 12:03:18 PM PDT
Oil is pushing $70/barrel this week, and no wonder. There's been a steady drip, drip, drip of news pushing prices higher. Weather cold enough to freeze oil solid shut production in Russia. The MMS issued a
report saying a lot of Gulf oil production was still down due to last fall's hurricanes, and 1/6 of it was likely to still be offline by the start of the next hurricane season. One of the top newsletters in the petroleum industry
reported that Kuwait has only half as much oil as as they claim. Kuwait's
response was tentative and unconvincing. Meanwhile, Iran moved their assets from Europe to China, preparing for sanctions, and drastically cut the flow of natural gas to Turkey. Unrest in
Nigeria threatened to cut off production there, and mysterious
explosions in Russia cut off natural gas to Georgia and Armenia.
So, have we reached peak oil? Possibly.
We just lost 5% of the world's oil reserves
Fri Jan 20, 2006 at 04:49:30 PM PDT
Brent crude oil, already up $1.50 on the
saber-rattling coming from Iran, went up a further $2 when
this Reuters story broke.
OPEC producer Kuwait's oil reserves are only half those officially stated, according to internal Kuwaiti records seen by industry newsletter Petroleum Intelligence Weekly (PIW).
"PIW learns from sources that Kuwait's actual oil reserves, which are officially stated at around 99 billion barrels, or close to 10 percent of the global total, are a good deal lower, according to internal Kuwaiti records," the weekly PIW reported on Friday.
Watering the Beer
Tue Aug 09, 2005 at 08:17:23 AM PDT
The Association For the Study of Peak Oil and Gas' August newsletter contained a surprise. As recently as last month, they had been predicting that the world peak for regular oil would hit in 2006. Now they list it as 2004 - already past.
I'm not sure what caused this change, and haven't been able to find out. Admittedly, this sort of modelling is prone to a good deal of variation, depending on the assumptions made. Perhaps they took into account the secret U.S. survey of Iraq that revealed the country has less than half the oil expected. Perhaps it's the hurricane damage to Thunder Horse. Or maybe they took into account that OPEC is watering the beer.
Is Saudi Arabia Running Out of Oil?
Fri May 13, 2005 at 09:08:22 AM PDT
Could Saudi Arabia, home to the world's largest oil reserves, actually be running out? It seems preposterous. Even the
Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas predicts that Saudi Arabia won't hit peak until
2012.
But Matthew Simmons, oil insider, Republican, and energy advisor to both Bill Clinton
and George W. Bush, is warning that things are not what they seem in the Kingdom. In recent speeches and interviews, he's laid out the argument for a Saudi Arabia already in
decline. He's also written a book, Twilight in the Desert: The
Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy, which is due at the end of the month. It was inspired by an
accidental trip to Saudi Arabia in 2003. What he saw there "didn't pass the smell test."
The Penultimate Pope?
Fri May 06, 2005 at 04:12:24 PM PDT
Is Pope Benedict XVI the second-to-last Pope? The
Prophecies of St. Malachy suggest that he is. It is supposedly a list of all the Popes of the Catholic Church, until the end of time. The current Pope,
Gloria olivæ, is the next to last on the list.
The next and supposedly last Pope, named Peter like the first, is predicted to preside over the Church during Judgment Day.
In extreme persecution, the seat of the Holy Roman Church will be occupied by Peter the Roman, who will feed the sheep through many tribulations, at the term of which the city of seven hills will be destroyed, and the formidable Judge will judge his people. The End.
The Real Cause of High Gas Prices: Libruls
Mon May 02, 2005 at 10:09:26 PM PDT
The problem isn't oil depletion, greedy oil corporations, or evil Arabs. And it's certainly not that we use too much. No, the problem is liberals:
http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=14352
The trouble with this country isn't that we don't have the technology or the resources to free ourselves from the grip of foreign oil dependency. We do. Our problem is that, for the past 25 years or more, we've let a bunch of whinny, let's-all-hold-hands-and-sing-kumbyah environmentalists undermine our viability. We've allowed these tree-hugging peons to set us back economically, because we haven't had the guts to confront them and their representatives in public office, head on, and expose their political correctness for the dangerous lunacy that it is.
Iran: Running on empty?
Tue Apr 26, 2005 at 10:18:23 PM PDT
Iran and Iraq have both claimed to have the world's second largest oil reserves, after Saudi Arabia. But how much oil do they really have? The word going around about Iraq is that they
don't have anywhere near the oil they claim. So that leaves Iran in second place, right? Maybe not.
Depression and the Environment
Mon Apr 25, 2005 at 03:28:11 PM PDT
The May issue of the science magazine
Discover has an article about using high doses of
vitamins and minerals to cure psychiatric problems such as bipolar
disorder, depression, and schizophrenia. You can read it on
their Web site
here.
The FDA has recently approved a large clinical trial. Dunno if it
will pan out, but the theory sounds plausible to me. It would explain
why these illnesses often run in families, though no genes for them
have been discovered. It could also explain why there's only a 50%
concordance rate for schizophrenia among identical twins. Perhaps
what's inherited is a vulnerability to certain vitamin or mineral
deficiencies. It might explain the rising rates of depression,
autism, etc., in the U.S. as well; nutrition has certainly changed
quite a bit over the past century. In particular, fruits and vegetables today have far fewer minerals than they did in the 1930s.
That last bit caught my attention. Why would that be?
Peak Oil Is Here
Sun Apr 24, 2005 at 05:32:18 AM PDT
Dr. Kenneth S. Deffeyes, oil worker turned Princeton professor, wrote a book about peak oil, called
Hubbert's Peak. In the
first chapter, he talks about how he knew peak oil had arrived for the U.S.:
Hubbert's prediction was fully confirmed in the spring of 1971. The announcement was made publicly, but it was almost an encoded message. The San Francisco Chronicle contained this one-sentence item: "The Texas Railroad Commission announced a 100 percent allowable for next month." I went home and said, "Old Hubbert was right." It still strikes me as odd that understanding the newspaper item required knowing that the Texas Railroad Commission, many years earlier, had been assigned the task of matching oil production to demand. In essence, it was a government-sanctioned cartel. Texas oil production so dominated the industry that regulating each Texas oil well to a percentage of its capacity was enough to maintain oil prices. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was modeled after the Texas Railroad Commission. Just substitute Saudi Arabia for Texas.
Now the Saudis have made a similar announcment.
Public Publishing: Bandwidth for the Masses - FREE!
Wed Mar 30, 2005 at 05:29:08 PM PDT
You know how this place can nuke your bandwidth. One screenshot in an open thread, and bam! The dreaded "bandwidth exceeded" error message. It's even worse if you want to post a large file, such as a video clip.
There may be an answer. There's a place people can upload text, photos, art and video, for free:
http://www.ourmedia.org/
The New Cold War
Tue Jan 18, 2005 at 06:06:20 PM PDT
Last month, I wrote a
diary
arguing that capitalism is unsustainable, because it requires constant growth. It's a pyramid scheme - one that is ultimately built on natural resources. Specifically, oil.
It seems the capitalists themselves are starting to realize this. A recent paper by Deutsche Bank, called
Energy Prospects After the Oil Age, raises the alarm. The first section is called, "No prosperity without energy." The last section is called "Time To Act."
That pretty much sums it up.
Why liberals should hate outsourcing
Fri Jan 07, 2005 at 09:52:47 PM PDT
Yes, I'm writing this in response to
Tyronen's diary. I was going to post this in reply, but it got so long I decided to post it as a diary instead.
I am also Asian-American, and I stand firmly against globalization, including outsourcing. In the long run, I am convinced that it's bad for everyone. I agree that we Americans use far more than our share of natural resources, and that it has to stop. Moreover, I think it will stop, whether we like it or not. Our modern society is built on fossil fuels, and they won't last forever. But globalization isn't the solution to poverty. It may be increasing it.
The World's Biggest Ponzi Scheme
Sun Dec 19, 2004 at 12:49:19 PM PDT
Social Security? Nope, bigger than that - capitalism.
I'm not some kind of Communist. I'm not a wild-eyed lefty, either; I'm a moderate swing voter, and capitalism has been good to me. There are a lot of great things about capitalism. But I've come to the conclusion that it's unsustainable, for the same reason a Ponzi scheme is: it requires constant growth, or it collapses.
This time of year, you hear retail sales reports every week. Usually, it's something called "same-store sales" - a comparison of the sales this year vs. last year, at stores open at least a year. A big increase is good. No change is bad.
Why should that be? Why is it that no matter how well a store did last year, it's expected to do even better this year? Of course they don't want to lose sales, but what's wrong with staying the same? Why are corporations expected to show growth every quarter, year after year? The answer goes to the very heart of capitalism.
Wounded vets need our help
Tue Nov 30, 2004 at 06:24:34 AM PDT
And they sure won't get it from the Bush administration, whose support for our troops consists mostly of lip service.
I received this e-mail message yesterday. I've checked it out to the best of my ability, and it appears to be legit. It claims that wounded troops can't call home from the hospital, because they can't afford it, and asks for donations of phone cards.
The e-mail said:
Cameras, Kerry, and Michigan
Mon Oct 11, 2004 at 06:20:41 PM PDT
My sister's birthday was this weekend. I asked her what I should buy for her. She asked me to make a donation to the DNC or MoveOn.org in lieu of a gift. The only present she wants is for Kerry to be elected. Sniff. My baby sister is all growed up.
She also told me an interesting story...
