Kickas.org Forums Ankylosing Spondylitis General Discussion #1 AS Web Support Group What is our Planet Coming To?

Over 95% of climatologist now believe that human activities are playing a significant role in the warming of planet and the changing climate. Many of the scientist who were doubters years ago have now come on board as Sue indicates. the evidence is becoming very one sided that Humans are at least partially responsible for the changes we will be seeing. There really is little debate in the scientific community anymore. Only in the political world, where agendas and not science are king, do people still fight about this or bring up old data that was unreliable.

Cleaning up the US has little impact as China and India are more than making up for any decrease you might see in the US or Europe.

I agree with old timer there needs to be some common sense here, targets set and goals reached over the next 10 years or so. But it has to be a worldwide effort. Unless China and India come on board with the West we won't see a lot of progress and the future looks to be pretty rocky for many in the underdeveloped countries and along the coasts.

Many are kind of like an alcoholic. The first step is to admit there is a problem. I want off Oil simply because I no longer want to fight wars in the Middle East and believe the only way to fix the US economy is to become energy self sufficient. We can never do that while we reamin on Oil as much as we do. we simply can't drill anywhere near enough to fix this even if it was smart to do so.

Reducing Oil use only has double positives for the West. The transfer of wealth from the US to OPEC is something we simply cannot afford any longer. OIl is not going away for a long time but I would love to see significant reductions in imported OIl over the next few years. Only way to do that is to begin the move to alternative fuels and funding of significant research. That is my hope as a solution to both the economy and the climate issue.

I really like the Pickens plan to move to Natural gas as a fuel but the political lobbies will not let it move forward.

Here is a great Quote

Doran and Kendall Zimmerman conclude that "the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes." The challenge now, they write, is how to effectively communicate this to policy makers and to a public that continues to mistakenly perceive debate among scientists.

Source:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090119210532.htm

Renewable energy sources would be great. Greater reliance on cleaner burning natural gas would also be great, and we have plenty of it. Problem in some of that is that we are using "fracking" to extract some of that natural gas. That has great pollution implications too unfortunately.

Fighting wars for oil is only one aspect of war in the Middle East; and it may be a lot less than most believe. I understand it to be about fighting wars for other global interests; proxy wars, yes. Most of it has been done under the phony war on terrorism. How else would they gain the support of the majority of the public?

We also have plenty of oil here in the U.S., although some, maybe much (I don't have the numbers handy), of it is difficult to extract. Hopefully, technologies will catch up with that. The problem with some of these renewable energies is that they too have environmental implications and some are not as "clean" as we believe. One that really rubs me the wrong way is corn ethanol. It takes food out of mouths that are hungry and it requires quite significant amounts of energy to process/convert it to ethanol. This need for energy to process/convert any kind of ethanol (e.g. switchgrass) won't go away.

There is still much work to be done. Also, I don't think schemes like cap and trade (read cap and tax) do much more than shift money around and put it the pockets of interests and individuals that work to make it tougher for folks like you and me to get by.

We agree on the Corn ethanol issue Jay. That was just a political football again and not based on science. The corn states have some pull. I also am not a real fan of cap and trade. It was a political tradeoff that is unworkable.

It would not be hard to reduce our oil use by 20% - 30% just through conservation, more fuel efficient cars, and better mass transit like high speed rail. But these remain political footballs. The real promise for getting off oil is in natural gas, the algae fuels, and new batteries. These are coming much sooner than people think.

It really is not as hard as the oil lobby wants you to think it is to greatly reduce our carbon footprint. Coal is the same way. Moving to Natural gas instead of coal could be fairly easily phased in with tax credits and investment. Fracking will get better as they are working to replace the current chemicals and new laws could force that to happen sooner.

Remember only 50% of the oil we use is going to make gasoline. The other half goes to Plastics, medicine, asphalt, etc. The list is long. We will need to keep drilling domestic oil just for those purposes for a long time. BTW the oil that is left will also require fracking just like we are doing for natural gas. The huge Bakken field we are drilling in Montana is almost as much fracking as the natural gas boom is. There is no way to avoid fracking of some kind for either natural gas or much of the remaining oil in the continental US. We have to make fracking safer if we want much more domestic oil or natural gas.

Dunno. So many bombs been dropped on it I'm surprised it still exists.

Fracking is BAD! The laws passed under the Bush administration have created a loophole that does not enforce EPA standards that we would consider sane. Halibuton lobbied to get provisions passed into law that would allow them to inject a chemical concoction into the ground and not be responsible for reporting or tracking what they were actually injecting into the ground. Results have been that some peoples ground water is pretty much polluted in such a way that not even reverse osmosis filters can filter out the chemicals they put into the ground. Those chemical pass right through the filters. Have you ever seen someone turn on their faucet and be able to light it like a torch? You can too if you watch a little flick entitled Gasland. Until those loopholes are repaired do not be pro-fracking. I'm all for domestic production, but do it safely and responsibly.

Yep. But there is really no way to greatly increase domestic production without fracking. That is a simple fact. There are some geologic areas where we should not frack but in giveaways to the Oil industry we allow it anywhere. We do need to stop it in certain areas where the geology will not support it safely. The Oil fracking in the west is very deep, much deeper than the natural gas fracking. I don't worry about oil fracking as much in the West. Fracking natural gas in the east is a different matter. We really need to tighten up the permitting process.

We have put ourselves in a real bind over the last 20 years with no real energy policy and giveaways to the Oil Lobby.

I agree we need to be working on all alternatives, but if you look at all the options, nothing now or on the horizon is even in the same ballpark in terms of energy density as gasoline, we are going to have to use our oil and it will get harder to get. We are more likely to run out of good quality water in our lifetimes, then we are oil. In my neck of the woods they use such large volumes of fresh water when they are fracturing the formations that they are lowering the aquifers. Nuclear power is also going to have to be part of the equation.
J.R.

We need to use common sense. The corn/ethanol was mentioned. There is lots of oil in Alaska. Most of it is in a desolate area where no one would notice the oil rigs. They are making such a big deal about banning incandescent light bulbs, when the alternative bulbs will poison our homes with mercury. Thats just plain stupid. Man is meant to be a good steward of the land, but that doesn't mean that we should lower our standards of living or put trees and nature on a pedestal as if it were a God.

What really bothers me is people who go around the world in big oil burning jets and ride in fancy oil burning cars while the are telling everyone else how they should live. These environmentalists should live the life they preach. They are just a bunch of hypocrites.

Donna you are so right! I agree. I have had it with environmentalists on everything from the air, the land, the water and energy. We need cheap energy and we need it fast...don't even say "can't"...get out of my way!

Luckily so far we have missed the bad storms tonight but please keep Missouri in your prayers, they had an F4 at about 8 pm Oklahoma time and so far there are 24 confirmed dead with many more expected...