Thats why they are building the new coal plants.
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The US needs to unleash our oil industry to drill.
JR
Deaths from climate change
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The US needs to unleash our oil industry to drill.
JR
AnalogPackrat
Well-known member
But poverty here in the US is nothing like poverty in India, China, and most of the developing world.
I have two problems with that. First, it isn't clear that long life beyond 75 years is necessarily desirable for everyone. Plenty of people suffer long illnesses and increasing disabilities that drastically reduce their quality of life
Second, many people here in the US die sooner due to diet and lifestyle choices that they made with their own free will. Is that really bad? To live and enjoy your life the way you wish even if it is 5-10 years shorter? Or should we be forced to eat and live as directed by someone else so that our lifespan is maximized regardless of happiness?
What?
Much of the trouble has an economic basis in government policy. Covid lock downs really hurt a lot of people. Overspending and printing money has caused inflation that is further eroding our standard of living. Soft on crime policies have helped erode our civil society and demoralize many people who live in high crime areas. I could go on.
Sure, lifestyle is a big part of it. But it's also pollution and other things. And the question remains "Why doesn't it happen in any other country?"
Reptilians at work? Damned Russian commies?
See, that's denial. And it starts with simple unwillingness to believe that maybe, just maybe the USA is doing something wrong. The idea that Americans live in the greatest nation in the universe has been stamped into their minds and it's one of those beliefs that's hard-programmed into their lives.
That all started in the beginning of the 20th century. Around WWI. With things like legislation that wiped out the US Socialist party, that at that time had around 6% of the votes.
The industry couldn't let that happen, so they started pulling strings. And the govt provided the means. The suffragettes also were a threat that needed to be eradicated. Some of them were deported, a lot were jailed. For no reason at all. Freedom of speech wasn't for them.
As long as the American people don't realise they are living an absurd dream, it won't change. It'll remain "us against them". Red against blue. Americans against the world.
Reptilians at work? Damned Russian commies?
See, that's denial. And it starts with simple unwillingness to believe that maybe, just maybe the USA is doing something wrong. The idea that Americans live in the greatest nation in the universe has been stamped into their minds and it's one of those beliefs that's hard-programmed into their lives.
That all started in the beginning of the 20th century. Around WWI. With things like legislation that wiped out the US Socialist party, that at that time had around 6% of the votes.
The industry couldn't let that happen, so they started pulling strings. And the govt provided the means. The suffragettes also were a threat that needed to be eradicated. Some of them were deported, a lot were jailed. For no reason at all. Freedom of speech wasn't for them.
As long as the American people don't realise they are living an absurd dream, it won't change. It'll remain "us against them". Red against blue. Americans against the world.
Sometimes even I underestimate the potential for technology to solve modern problems. Today I read a newspaper article about deep geothermal drilling. For those who were sleeping in class that day, our core is molten rock, so there is relatively unlimited heat energy to extract.
The cost to drill holes miles deep underground is not cheap. Historically our geothermal efforts are limited to regions where the heat is not so deep underground.
The article talked about two different new technologies that promise cheaper drilling. It still sounds expensive to me ($B), but cheaper than alternate energy sources. In an ideal world they can drill new holes to extract geothermal energy to re-energize old coal power plants. That sounds sweet.
The two approaches were some kind of plasma drilling. One uses superheated steam to break down rock, the other was perhaps electrical plasma.
Nobody is talking about this technology but at least one major oil driller (Nabors?) is pursuing....
JR
The cost to drill holes miles deep underground is not cheap. Historically our geothermal efforts are limited to regions where the heat is not so deep underground.
The article talked about two different new technologies that promise cheaper drilling. It still sounds expensive to me ($B), but cheaper than alternate energy sources. In an ideal world they can drill new holes to extract geothermal energy to re-energize old coal power plants. That sounds sweet.
The two approaches were some kind of plasma drilling. One uses superheated steam to break down rock, the other was perhaps electrical plasma.
Nobody is talking about this technology but at least one major oil driller (Nabors?) is pursuing....
JR
Extreme world poverty is considered < $1.90 per day, poverty in the US is considered <$35.28 per day.
Since I am closer to the end than beginning I pay attention to LE. The recent slippage in LE can be explained by the pandemic interfering with typical preventative health care. I expect this to revert to the previous trend of increasing LE as long as we don't do something stupid, like throttling cheap energy. We don't hit 8 billion world population with everything in decline.
Some people more than others.
That is not my observation (I outlived my father and a couple siblings).
JR
Personal experience is not a statistic, John.
And, yes stats are dangerous because they're vulnerable to interpretation bias. But I've been wondering about these numbers for years now. It isn't a recent trend and there's no other country to compare to. Even if you add up traffic deaths, drug overdose, obesity, diabetes and a number of other civilisation diseases, it doesn't explain the direction of the vector.
And, yes stats are dangerous because they're vulnerable to interpretation bias. But I've been wondering about these numbers for years now. It isn't a recent trend and there's no other country to compare to. Even if you add up traffic deaths, drug overdose, obesity, diabetes and a number of other civilisation diseases, it doesn't explain the direction of the vector.
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I have been listening to these "america sucks because" screeds for years... I responded to the short term inflection in the LE curve.
If you have other specific criticisms have at it...
JR
If you have other specific criticisms have at it...
JR
AnalogPackrat
Well-known member
Not sure "trend" you're referring to here. It was essentially flat (not increasing or decreasing noticeably) from about 2011-2019. After that we've got Covid, lock down effects (mental, physical, medical). Life expectancy stopped increasing around 2011. Not sure why. Likely a combination of factors.
https://www.statista.com/chart/20673/us-life-expectancy-higher/
CDC has some stats regarding the past 2-3 years.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2022/20220831.htm
And is useful to note that "life expectancy" isn't data, it is a prediction of the future for people born today or who are alive today. I had trouble finding any actual data on historical lifespans.
What is far more interesting and revealing is to look at actuarial tables of remaining life expectancy, death rate, etc. for a given age. There you can see problems like drug ODs, gang violence, auto accidents, etc that disproportionately affect people under 30 and how they skew the data.
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html
Note, for example, that 2% of people will be dead by age 26, but also 2% will live to 98. 10% will be dead by 55, but 10% will live to 93. Plot the data and note the shape.
to get back on topic about climate, sort of. The world population just eclipsed 8 billion people. If you want to ponder something, how many do you think we could feed with solar panels? Hint: we make fertilizer for farming from fossil fuel.
Good news about food it looks like Russia is back on board with allowing grain shipments from Ukraine. I can't make sense of that chess game.
JR
PS: I just got a notice from my utility that my electric bill will be going up because they are allowed to pass through the cost increases for the NG they are burning in the "clean" coal plant.
Good news about food it looks like Russia is back on board with allowing grain shipments from Ukraine. I can't make sense of that chess game.
JR
PS: I just got a notice from my utility that my electric bill will be going up because they are allowed to pass through the cost increases for the NG they are burning in the "clean" coal plant.
That's only true if you look at farming as an industrial large-scale process. And that's because of capitalism.
Organic farming doesn't need nitrogen from fossil fuel. Nor phosphor. And some of the processes can be employed on a large scale by using bio reactors.
Only, that research doesn't get any grants from the likes of Monsanto. There's no profit in it for them.
I've been working with organic farmers for over half a century. They are doing very well and they're not hit by profiteering from speculators. Even our supermarkets have realised that a lot of consumers like local, organic products. The move from farmer markets and farm shops has been going on for over a decade now.
Of course, the industry is trying to copy look and style, but they are losing that battle. They've turned to litigation now, threatening small farmers and the people around them with expensive lawsuits over trade marks etc. Even if these lawsuits cannot be won, they know very well a small farmer can't mount a defense because they don't have the financial means.
We've begun a fund, with the aid of several of our universities and for the time being, the industry seems to have given up that kind of attack. So the industry has turned to their usual co-conspirators: lobbying. That's why the EUs rules for nitrogen emissions into water are a problem for industrial and organic farmers alike. Only, the organic farmers are hit far less.
It's the large scale industrial poultry, porc and bovine producers that will go out. Some of them are trying to evade the problem by producing energy from the excess menure they produce. Probably that wasn't what the industry planned for.
And, of course, large scale farmers that use industrial fertilisers. It's the wash-off of these fertilisers that's the biggest problem. A funny side effect of the lobbying might be that the fertiliser producers are killing their own customers.
Even the much quoted methane problem from live stock vanishes once you change from large scale industrial farming to small scale organic. Did you know fi that adding a few percents of seaweed to the menu of cows reduces methane production by 95%?
Besides, the methane emissions from live stock in the USA are smaller than the methane leaks the oil companies still refuse to fix.
Also, termites, to name just one example, produce about twelve times the methane emissions that bovine live stock produces, if you take size into account. What should we do? Exterminate all termites?
And, Yes, organic farming is able to feed the world. That's provided we stop importing asparagus from Peru, or grain from Ukraine, or...
My grandfather, who was a farmer, predicted all of this in 1965. I was a little boy then. But I understood very well what he meant. And I've been watching and helping farmers to understand ever since. Our farmers are our lifeblood. The hardest part is getting our politicians to understand and cooperate. They are so easily corrupted by bankers...
Organic farming doesn't need nitrogen from fossil fuel. Nor phosphor. And some of the processes can be employed on a large scale by using bio reactors.
Only, that research doesn't get any grants from the likes of Monsanto. There's no profit in it for them.
I've been working with organic farmers for over half a century. They are doing very well and they're not hit by profiteering from speculators. Even our supermarkets have realised that a lot of consumers like local, organic products. The move from farmer markets and farm shops has been going on for over a decade now.
Of course, the industry is trying to copy look and style, but they are losing that battle. They've turned to litigation now, threatening small farmers and the people around them with expensive lawsuits over trade marks etc. Even if these lawsuits cannot be won, they know very well a small farmer can't mount a defense because they don't have the financial means.
We've begun a fund, with the aid of several of our universities and for the time being, the industry seems to have given up that kind of attack. So the industry has turned to their usual co-conspirators: lobbying. That's why the EUs rules for nitrogen emissions into water are a problem for industrial and organic farmers alike. Only, the organic farmers are hit far less.
It's the large scale industrial poultry, porc and bovine producers that will go out. Some of them are trying to evade the problem by producing energy from the excess menure they produce. Probably that wasn't what the industry planned for.
And, of course, large scale farmers that use industrial fertilisers. It's the wash-off of these fertilisers that's the biggest problem. A funny side effect of the lobbying might be that the fertiliser producers are killing their own customers.
Even the much quoted methane problem from live stock vanishes once you change from large scale industrial farming to small scale organic. Did you know fi that adding a few percents of seaweed to the menu of cows reduces methane production by 95%?
Besides, the methane emissions from live stock in the USA are smaller than the methane leaks the oil companies still refuse to fix.
Also, termites, to name just one example, produce about twelve times the methane emissions that bovine live stock produces, if you take size into account. What should we do? Exterminate all termites?
And, Yes, organic farming is able to feed the world. That's provided we stop importing asparagus from Peru, or grain from Ukraine, or...
My grandfather, who was a farmer, predicted all of this in 1965. I was a little boy then. But I understood very well what he meant. And I've been watching and helping farmers to understand ever since. Our farmers are our lifeblood. The hardest part is getting our politicians to understand and cooperate. They are so easily corrupted by bankers...
Yes organic farming can feed the world, just maybe not 8 billion people.
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I am pretty sure Ukraine grain is welcomed by bakers in the middle east trying to feed their populations.
JR
Bjorn wrote the book on sensible analysis of climate and fossil fuel (False Alarm). Koonin has a good book focussed on evaluating climate data (Unsettled). I am currently reading a book by Alex Epstein (Fossil Future) that offers a different, more philosophical perspective.
JR
JR
Not now, but it shouldn't be a problem in the future, provided we are careful about things like conserving nature, very careful use of pesticides, man made molecules and new technology in general.
Atm, yes. Doesn't mean we shouldn't focus on local production. That means not only food, but everything possible. It won't eliminate international trade, because minerals aren't present everywhere and not everything can be grown locally.
Just like electric cars aren't The Solution. They still have a micro particles problem and still need asphalt to construct roads. But abandoning the need to travel as a pass-time will help a lot. Abandoning the throw-away economy will also be a large part of solving the puzzle.
user 37518
Well-known member
Why is it that people who defend communism and dictatorship so boldly, most of the time live in a 1st world, democratic and rich country?
user 37518
Well-known member
I don't think they are serious, I just think that they are looking for attention and approval. Today's norm is being outside the norm, so the crazier the better.
For example:
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user 37518
Well-known member
To answer myself: My best guess is that when people live in a country where few people need to be 'saved': from poverty, crime, etc... they turn their eyes to the rest of the world and think they can 'save' the world by preaching their 'ideas', without actually going to those places which actually need help, or doing anything useful about it; never mind putting their ideas to the test. It is just something they do to feel good about themselves.
Thomas Sowell has a perfect name for these people: "The Anointed".
She is on a media tour pimping her new movie, so a little extra notoriety wouldn't hurt that effort but I suspect she actually believes her own BS (not the sharpest stick in the bunch). I am breaking my own rule about not disparaging celebrities, but my dislike of her goes way back several decades to viet nam era. I find it hard to be objective about her bloviating.
Her old nickname is "Hanoi Jane" for when she gave comfort and moral support to North Viet Nam while Americans were fighting in S. Viet Nam, and John McCain was being held in the Hanoi Hilton (Hỏa Lò Prison). She famously did a photo op posing on an anti-aircraft battery used to shoot down American aircraft.
JR
user 37518
Well-known member
I've heard some celebrities claiming that their own agents tell them what to say, in order to conform to Hollywood ideology, otherwise they basically get banned from any movie or from working in the industry.
