I know the theory, but (a) it doesn't suggest the supply is unlimited (Uranium isn't a result of rotting matter either, but it isn't unlimited); and (b) if true it still requires considerably more expense to get at it (iirc, the originator of this theory believes that the main reserves are much deeper than we usually drill, and that what we have so far discovered is simply stuff that's seeped closer to the surface), so using it will still make alternative sources more attractive.
It's so easy to blame regulation.
The thing is that they have to go deeper and deeper - into the earth, under the seas - to find new deposits.
But new reserves only delay the inevitable. It's a choice, and people simply don't want the respoinsibility of making it. We have to choose between living wastefully, and sucking back oil products like there's no tomorrow - or we have to buck up, do with a little bit less, and develop alternative energy more. And start leading the world by example, rather than just telling the poorer nations to "do as we say, not as we do".
**For now**. People like to wish it's unlimited, but IMO it's rather stupid to *rely* on that remote possibility.Sorry but it gripes the bleep out of me to think that we're just blithely going to destroy the planet just so that some people (who *are* healthy enough to walk) can drive some 8MPG behemoth three blocks to pick up a loaf of bread at the 7-11. There is too much waste, period. The US has been able to get away with being piggish, so as a nation, we think we have the right to do so. We have the might, but that doesn't make it either right or healthy or smart.
I'm not a "tree hugger", but I'm also not able to advocate "we can waste all we want because we *believe* (different from "know") there is more out there somewhere".
Look at the LA to San Bernadino area - the air was getting pretty good, now it's nearly as bad as it was in the "bad old days of smog". Tell me it's irrelevant after your children get asthma and/or can't play outside because if it isn't the smog that gets them, it's the increased UV, or residual chemicals in the soil that play havoc with their immune or/an reproductive or/and other physiological systems.
The plan fact is, people don't give a ruddy shit. So the kids gets a cough, just keep teh inhaler on hand - heaven forbid we should have to give up driving the F350 blocks to GET that inhaler. Oh, and heaven forbid that every simple trivial little item isn't entombed in a 1/4"-thick plastic case (that doesn't get recycled, just trashed).
This isn't merely a matter of "get more oil". The national attitude is on trial - the issue being, what, and how much, are we willing to, and going to, destroy in the name of big cars and plastic-wrapped-everything and so on. Every recent generation has bitched and whines and pissed'n'moaned about how "the last generation ruined the planet", and then goes on to just make matters even worse. Good grief. If they shut the f* up and took *one fifth* of the time and energy they spend mewling, and put it towards
*doing* something constructive, the world would be a much better place. But nooooooooooo...., it's just so much easier for people to sit on their ever-widening butts, and whine that it's all somebody else's fault and somebody else's responsibility. It makes me want to puke.I'm so sick of that "we just need more of that secret oil" crap. That's all it is, a load of crap. Heaven forbid we recycle, or cut back on waste
- and no, it's *not* the same as going back to living in mud huts, that's just a stupid statement made by stupid people who are too selfish and greedy to bother themselves with trying to conserve anything other than their own petty, ignoble, ignorant, and in the long run meaningless delusions of "power". It's just a bloated kindergarten-level ego trip - my car's bigger than your car, my lawn is greener than your lawn, my stuff is better than your stuff, blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda blither blither blither.
Meanwhile, the things that are important get ignored. People either treat one another like garbage, or they get all involved in petty nonsense and end up isolated from others, and then someone dies, like your sibling, and all that's left are regrets for having wasted so much time and energy screwing around with BS that is actually meaningless and irrelevant.
We don't need more bloody f*ing oil, we need more of that *humanity* we just *love* to claim we posess (but exhibit so very little of). If people gave a damn, the world wouldn't be in it's present situation to begin with.
Bleh.
Bullcrap..........it is not a matter of responsibility..........it is a matter of economics.
When alternative ernergy sources become enconomically viable....the marketplace will make it happen.
I thik you have it backwards.....the kyoto treaty had the world saying that to us.
And your proof of us "destroying the world" ???
The "Blame America First" arguement YAWN
rest of whiny rant snipped
"P. Fritz" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com:
What the heck do you think "economics" is? It's a result of human actions and human choices.
So let's just sit on out fat asses and do nothing to *make* it happen? The problem with waiting around for "the market" is that it's too much like saying it's Somebody Else's Responsibility.
Just another slough-off.
Yeah, screw them, we're the Big Bad US and can do whatever the f* we want.
More important: Your proof that it isn't ???
Anyhoo, no matter what evidence exists, people who prefer waste aren't doing to believe anything that says waste is not a good idea.
If that's all you say, then that's all you can see. YAWN right back at you.
Someone has to take responsibility, be a leader - it obviously isn't you or your ilk.
(1) Yeah, as tho' your ilk doesn't sound at least as "whiny" as you accuse others of supposedly sounding (esp. when you're going for the cheap and petty little inane attempt at an emotional jab because you can't think of anything real to say) (2) given that one of my siblings just died, I don't give a shit whether you snip this or want to piss and moan about tree huggers or whatever because you think you have the right to wontonly waste whatever your heart desires to waste. IMO it's stupid. So snip to your heart's content. Whatever.
"Stop using oil." "OK, we'll build a nuke plant." "No, you can't do that." "OK, we'll build wind turbines." "Eeek NO!" "How about we'll do what we want and you go live in a cave in the dark as you seem to want?" "Don't be rediculous."
like there's no
As you say, it's only a matter of time. Will sucking it up really make the difference? And can we get the nimbys to suck up a little too?
Leading is just another kind of telling. What say "we" just do for "us" and let the rest of them worry about them?
I think "remote" is too optimistic a word.
We aren't going to destroy the planet.
I became aware of my surroundings just in the nick of time so this packaging thing boggles my mind. Guess if it isn't in advertising I might get cooties or something.
Don't let us stop you.
Now we know your stump.
Hopefully your disgust doesn't get this in the way of your practicing what you preach very often.
"gruhn" wrote in news:fALOe.62$ snipped-for-privacy@news.uswest.net:
Your words. I don't propose "cold turkey", just a slowdown of the obscene level of wastage in preparation for what I am certian will be an eventual turnover to non-petroleum energy.
I've never claimed to oppose them. I POed I can't have one in my back yard, so don't lay that one on me.
Now I lose patience with you, becuase Inknow damn good and well that you are far more intelligent that that, you *know* there is a difference between "cut back on the fat" and "eat nothing but watercress". So please refrain from trying to be stupid, it's ugly.
The nimbys are most of the problem IMO.
Again, i know you are more intelligant than that - you know that "leading by example" means "living in accordance to one;s own preachings", which is NOT the same as telling others what to do.
You also know that when most people are *told* to do X, they will dig in their heels and do the opposite.
Setting an example is different and you know that. And I would hope you realize that I know "setting a positive example" is not "telling, ordering, dictating".
I was feeling generous.
As below:
Deny it all you want. The fact is, when everyday people care enough to decide to improve something, they just do it, and things improve. When people sit on their butts and say "it's somebody else's responsibility", nothing gets done. That much is a no-brainer.
Everybody of course cannot do everything, and I'm not saying they should or need to. But everybody *can* do a couple of small things which, added together, improve the overall state of things.
It's not obscurata, not rocket science, not some deep mysterious secret. It's patently obvious, it's happened, and it can happen again. The problem is all the naysayers who start shrieking about extremes and then start name calling and otherwise do their damndest to try to keep anyone from doing anything positive.
Hey, I try. Have to drive now to recycle, which is kid of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation, but I get good gas mileage at least, and there is no recycle pick-up so there you go. I try to balance respiratory function with air condtioning, putting up with poorer of the former to save more of the latter. I only use CFLs. I tolerate some suboptimal (but noncritical) health comforts so as to try to avoid total wastage of resources. Not because anybody knows what I do in my private life (and I like it that way), but simply because I feel some things are worth doing.
Yes there is more that I could do, but the point is that, as I said, one has to choose to do even the smallest things - which is what too many people don't bother with. AND saying "I'm no saint" does not at all justify someone else's blase' attitude.
I wasn't.
So maybe what you have to say is based on some incorrect assumption or another; perhaps a failed understanding.
I knew that?
Far out.
I did not know that I knew that.
It looked to me like "see what I'm doing, you should do that too." And frankly, so long as the stuff you don't want to have seen stays unseen, you are perfectly free to "lead by example" while engaging in whatever you want. You think R.C. priests who have sexual relations are putting their relations out as an example? Of course not. The example they provide is entirely different and they expect to lead by that example. What they do behind closed doors and hushed victims is not their "example" to those they are "leading". Leading by example may be easier if you aren't a hypocrite but it isn't any sort of necessary.
Leading is telling other people what to do. Living according to your principles is a choice you make about how you affect you.
No, I'm pretty well sure that I did not "know that" or that I am "more intelligent than that."
Drive slow here, pay your taxes, storm that bunker, reply to this post, get a parade permit, put five dollars in the tin to wear shorts on Friday, buy Pepsi, ...
I may "know that" but I also know that people crave a strong leader to tell them what to do, how to think...
Be that as it may, it doesn't matter if the telling will fail or succede, it only matters for purposes here that the telling is telling. When you set out to lead, you set out to tell.
Nope, it's just one strategy that some people use. Others use different strategies. I'm sure a management consultant could brief us.
Ah, now you're gonna make me look at old posts to see where "ordering and dictating" came from.
Well, not in the immediate context and not in the body of the post so I'll just guess you were playing thesaurus games with "lead" in order to play straw men with me. "Leading by example isn't a dictator [now, is this supposed to press my Nazi buttons?] therefore you're wrong." If that's your intent I'll have to beg you to return to the topic at hand. If not, I'll have to admit to my cluelessness as to what you are trying to say there.
Happens to the best of us.
"gripes the bleep". I like that.
I wonder if people give more of a damn than you think they do but don't see how, ranged against government and Giant Multinational Corporations (TM) they feel they can do anything.
I wonder if people would give more of a damn if they lived 300 years.
Sorry, I was denying that? You expect I'll deny that?
Those are the only two options/explanations you see?
Just the other day I ran across somebody ranting "why do you care about that small stuff? Why aren't you fighting The Patriot Act?" one presumes... 'like me'.
I was thinking more along the lines of the appeal to *humantiy*. You were coming off very ranty and hateful and people suck you all need to do what I sayey in that post. Very ... human.
I've noticed that people talk about "return" on alternative electric or hybrid cars or.. any number of things. As if that were the only available analysis. And in the end, it will be. We aren't so under the thumb yet that it probably won't be the market that makes the day. But there are people who choose to go PV or what have you because... they want to. "But you'll only barely break even in twenty years." Yeah, so what?
"gruhn" wrote in news:uRPOe.70$ snipped-for-privacy@news.uswest.net:
Well, I never pretended that my social skills are any better than those of a turnip, so it's entirely possible that I'm wrong on all counts.
I'm not positing hypocrisy. I assume (no doubt simplistically) that "lead by example" only works when one practices what one preaches.
I guess I must have a different philosophy regarding the meaning of "leader" and "leading". Silly me, I still think of small-scale cultures (sorry, I don't know the technical term) wherein the chief/chieftan/clan leader/whatever was only in power as long as his actions were focused upon trying to benefit the village, the people.
In more civilized places, the "leader" (regardless of whatever means were used to get the person into that position) generally has as little to do with The People as is humanly possible, separated from them by many layers (and sub layers) of bureaucracy, physical barriers/cordons, ranks of armed and uniformed guards, and so on and so forth.
OK, sorry. Don't feel bad, it wouldn't be the first time I've made that error (i.e. burdening people with my over-expectations).
Again, my definition of "leader" (as opposed to "ruler" or "oligarchy" or "despot" and so on) is obviously based upon a different philosophy.
I'm probably wrong anyway, given the stubbornly-surviving remnents of my stupid tendency towards idealism.
Management consultant? Oh Good Grief! Yeah, we had some of those Bozos come in to the Agency to "fix" things - the result being a *total* clusterf*ck. I've also seen their handiwork elsewhere. It typically results in more bureaucracy and more paperwork. Bunch of silly pop-psyche crap that doesn't work on anyone with an IQ over 120.
Thanks but no thanks.
Nope.
I don't need the Thesaurus for such simple words. At the same time, I'm not clever enough for most "games", given my lack of social instinct. I'm rather simplemnded in that I try to say simply what I'm thinking. OTOH since I don't think verbally, as I've noted in the past, I don't always verbalize in a way that others find readily accessible.
No, I'm not celver enough to be that manipulative.
Never mind.
I'm trying to use fewer cusswords. Also, it leaves it up to the reader's imagination...sort of like an interactive web site.
Again, there is a difference, and avast one at that, between sayig "these faults exist in the curent situation", and saying "bring down the system".
More to the point, if they could live 300 years in an improved environment. What would they choose, long life, or luxurious wastefuless?
Expect? Nothing to do with expect. It simply seemed to be an extrapolation of your statements.
(1) someone does something (2) someone does nothing
Is there a third? You do, or your don't do.
There are many problems, but again, one does something, or one does nothing. If someone fights the P.Act (as I call it, the Pee Act), but throws lit cigarettes out of their car in a tinder-dry fire zone, is that a great thing? The "small stuff", in terms of one's day-to-day life, are simply habits. For one example, it's a habit to either leave all the lights blazing and use incandescent (or other energy-hungry) light bulbs - just as it can become a habit to instead use CFLs or even better, low wattage lighting, and switch the lights off in rooms you're not using.
The think about ignoring the "small stuff" is that it adds up, for good or ill. On a personal level - if you have 40K to spend on a vehicle, do you max that out and take a loan to spend even more, or do you choose to spend
24K and invest what's left over? In larger terms, do you take 5 seconds to rinse a tin and put it into the recycle bin, or is it "just easier" to throw it away and contribute to both resource depletion (with subsequent increased mining and refining costs) and ever-growing landfills. In the immediate moment, yes, recycling can be an annoyance. In the long term, i.e. not only one's own old age but also the quality of life for one's children and grandchildren (or neices and nephews, whatever the case may be), the result of not recycling are a bigger pain.Thinking in the long term versus the short term is also something that can fairly easily become a habit. It doesn;'t mean one is "perfect", o that one absolutely must have a perfect track record. It just means that one tries to do something positive.
I've never claimed to be all warm'n'fuzzy. OTOH, given that 15 yrs ago I'd tested as having 8 out of 10 indicators for becoming a psycho serial killer, it's a big step upwards to having times when I do feel that people suck and leaving it at that. I still contribute to charity, because even when I'm in a crappy state of mind (such as now, still in a bit of shock/disbelief), I know intellectually that, in the end, it's better to help even a little, than to hinder. So I did, and do, continue to work on self-improvement in that area, as well as in the other areas (such as recycling, charity, and so on). It's a daily process. The point of all that blither being that, once again, it's either do, or don't do.
Either one works on self-improvement, or one doesn't. The easy way is to give up, and give in to bad or destructive or even just lazy forces or habits or impulses. Eh, it's too much bother to rinse out this can, eh, it's too much bother to turn the AC to a couple degrees warmer, and so on.
It's not a matter of being "perfect", it's merely a matter of stopping to think once in a while, and of doing even a few things here and there to improve oneself and develop better habits. ANYone can do that much.
What would be interesting would be to know their financial habits. Just going by the people I've known/met personally in my meanderings across the continent, the ones who kvatch about that return are typically the ones who waste money hand-over-fist in most or all other areas of their lives.
So the "return" argument doesn't impress me, not one iota.
It's one thing if you have a family in the Working Poor esgment, and they can't muster the money to even get the smaller things, never mind full alternative-energy options. But they aren't the people who consider it in the first place. If someone can afford to have a custom home built, then some alternative energy options or at the minimum energy-saving options are simply not beyond their grasp. Again, it's a choice. Do I want a $5000 stove and a $2000 fridge (and so on and so forth), or would I be as well off with less expensive options, and put that $$ towards lowering my energy useage? In our culture, as it currently exists, I'd bet that 95% or more go for the "conspicuous consumption" options. After all, you never see Solar billed as "making you the envy of your neighbors". Unless, of course, you are able to save enough from the lower bills to "upgrade" to a Lincoln Navigator or some such thing.
At the same time, if people choose conspicuous material wealth over energy efficiency, then, as I've said before, they shouldn't kvetch about certain things as though it's somebody else's fault or responsibility. If one gets a vehicle that requires a $700/month payment and only gets 11 MPG, one got what one wanted and IMO shouldn't p'n'moan about how "the gov.t should drill the preserves" just so that one's own bad choices can be mitigated without any effort at all on one's own part. After all, it's great to have all the other taxpayers pay for one's own choices. And currently, it seems to also be "The American Way"...
And IMO is the core of it all. People currently being unwilling to make any changes so as to mitigate the cumulative results of their own choices.
It was not all that many years ago, after all, that we had Public Service "commercials" about turning off lights in rooms that aren't being used. None of that now. Why is that? Well, because it seems that certain people are making more money as poeple burn more energy, and those moneyed people have more influence than do "a few penniless tree-huggers" (as though ANYone who thinks waste is irresponsible is a "tree hugging hippie" or some such thing, and fit only to be ignored, because after all, "all animals are equal - but some animals are more equal than others".)
Well my brain hurts and I'm tired and have to call and see whether anyone knows whetehr there will be a funeral service, so enough of this -
- K.
I was just working away. Grip on the rod was a bit off so I stubbed the end out on my tummy, readjusted my grip... ow ow ow ow ow.
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