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Well, first of all, you would have us believe the same about the scientists funded by ExxonMobil. Koch brothers, et cætera. Why is suspicion more believable about the corporation-funded folks, than about the government-funded ones?

The corporation-hired folks are paid to write a paper (called a deliverable) with arguments supporting the theory of their sponsors, while government scientists are paid to do research regardless of the result, much to the annoyance of various politicians.

But the way the system is set up, the would-be "rebels" get screened-out long before making a name for themselves — if you argue in your papers, that AGW is insignificant and a misplaced concern, what are the chances of making it into a grad-school today?

As good as any one else's, unless their denying AGW is an indicator of their prowess in science.

Most people would go into sincere denial.

So you think thousands of scientists can produce bogus results without ever having an inkling that their results are wrong. So they all read their instruments incorrectly, get their math wrong, and still they all get the same results, and still none of them notices anyone else's errors despite the reviews. You call that believable?

But the way the system is set up, the would-be "rebels" get screened-out long before making a name for themselves

So on one side we have plenty of proof that a few dozens of scientists are being paid to deny or minimize AGW; and on the other we have thousands of scientists producing lies supporting AGW but we have not a single shred of evidence that anyone is pushing them to lie. And according to you that's because the selection and formatting process is so efficient that out of thousands of scientists none of them got depressed to the point where he would publicize their frustration with the system. And none of them rebelled either? And the exact same phenomenon worked across 120 countries with different cultures and opposing interests. And you really claim with a straight face that your conspiracy theory is the more plausible one? Just, wow!

A seasoned and established tenure-professor might be able to get away with it, but not scratch-free.

So Lindzen is your best example of a scientist being unfairly persecuted by the AGW crowd? The Lindzen who, from your own article, charges oil and coal interests $2,500 a day for his consulting services; his 1991 trip to testify before a Senate committee was paid for by Western Fuels, and a speech he wrote, entitled "Global Warming: the Origin and Nature of Alleged Scientific Consensus," was underwritten by OPEC. And you were the one who talking about conflicts of interests was asking people to recuse themselves! And instead of asking for Lindzen to recuse himself you try to pass him off as a martyr?

. . . to understand what happened to the Roman Empire, read this incredibly mentally elegant, and short, paper by Prof. Joseph Tainter (the author of the classic, Collapse of Complex Societies). Hint: it is fundamentally what has, and will continue, to be the collapse of Amerika: http://dieoff.org/page134.htm

> to last for decades at minimum

That is a gross overestimate of the actual resources available.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/9751

http://www.oilcrisis.com/

http://dieoff.org/

Reminds me of this graph.

"Peasant rebellions were not exceptional events. They erupted so frequently in the course of these four centuries that they may be said to have been as common in this agrarian society as factory strikes would be in the industrial world. In southwestern France alone, some 450 rebellions occurred between 1590 and 1715. No region of Western Europe was exempted from this pattern of chronic violence. The fear of sedition was always present in the minds of those who ruled. It was a corrective, a salutary fear --- since only the threat of insurrection could act as a check against unlimited exactions."

AFTER THE BLACK DEATH, George Huppert

( Found at http://www.dieoff.org/ )

Any AI book will tell you this. Mathematical proofs can be found in any introductory combinatorics book. Trust me they will mention the problem of state explosion, and a good book will have a proof that state explosion is utterly intractible in any system that contains any chaotic component (Basic idea of the proof : at some point you get into the chaotic component (usually very quickly), in this part of the decision tree you can never eliminate anything due to the chaos property, and you have an infinite tree, ergo you can never correcly evaluate it. It doesn't even matter what the complexity of your evaluation function is, it would be unsolveable even if it wasn't the case that most optimization algorithms are at least NP-complete. In practice you would have to solve the halting problem for every branch of the tree).

But, an example :

THE LIMITS OF RATIONALITY

Operations research tools have also underscored dramatically the limits of SEU theory in dealing with complexity. For example, present and prospective computers are not even powerful enough to provide exact solutions for the problems of optimal scheduling and routing of jobs through a typical factory that manufactures a variety of products using many different tools and machines. And the mere thought of using these computational techniques to determine an optimal national policy for energy production or an optimal economic policy reveals their limits.

From here

Note how simple the problem is where a rational decision is attempted. Compared to deciding how to optimally live a human life ... well, what do you think ?

But there's an entire library on the subject, this was extensively studied in the 1950's and essentially scientists gave up.

DeathElk, the time has come to reveal our presence to the Earthlings. Our species has been observing humans for some years. While our species should have risen above the threatening sounds you make, I well understand your sentiment. Our time observing humans is now up, we are leaving.

Humans, here is the report we sent to our home system about your species. Your your own sake, humans, I hope you are able to learn your true nature.

What Carter was discussing was resources in the USA

[citation needed]

Those talks on peak oil production for 1970 were based on M. King Hubbert's theory for the US lower 48 states. With respect to the lower 48 states, he was accurate: http://dieoff.org/page1916.gif

Funny, I could have sworn that the US still has the worlds largest supply of oil shale. Plus oil sand. Plus coal. Plus plenty of offshore oil, and oil in Alaska. I guess "peak oil" to you just means "we have less than we used to"?

With the US as a net importer and a dwindling supply of domestic oil I'm not sure where you're going with this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves

The United States #1 source of oil is Canada. That oil comes from traditional wells that are drying up and more recently oil sands that are expanding production. However, the oil sands are far from a recent discovery. They have been well known since oil became a commodity but were left untouched because it is incredibly expensive to recover.

That fact that companies are paying big bucks to develop oil repositories that are expensive only proves that they're running out of traditional oil... and they're heading into the tail end of the curve.

- If you need to burn half the equivalent energy in natural gas to extract the oil from the sand as you recover in oil energy...
  OR
- If you need to drill offshore in water so deep it becomes a risk... ...then something is wrong.

http://dieoff.org/page112.htm

Specifically (emphasis mine):

Carrying capacity today. Given current technologies, levels of consumption, and socioeconomic organization, has ingenuity made today's population sustainable? The answer to this question is clearly no, by a simple standard. The current population of 5.5 billion is being maintained only through the exhaustion and dispersion of a one-time inheritance of natural capital (Ehrlich and Ehrlich 1990), including topsoil, groundwater, and biodiversity.

The issue is not space to inhabit, perse.

1. It is, partly, space for the animals to inhabit. Without animals, we cannot have our current Eco-system. we are not the only animal on the planet, and if we squeeze out all other animals to serve our own needs, many other animals might die off, leading to cascading effects.

For instance, if we squeeze off wolves, hawks, and other animals that eat rabbits, it's possible one day rabbits will become a significant threat to our agricultural output. If we kill off bees, then pollination will become difficult for many many plants, again killing our agricultural output. I'm willing to bet that the attrition rate of human caused traffic accidents and territory loss against mid level predators significantly outstrips

2. It is arable land. A quote from a study published by a guy Cornell and a guy in Rome.

(link: http://dieoff.org/page40.htm)
# At the present growth rate of 1.1% per year, the U.S. population will double to more than half a billion people within the next 60 years. It is estimated that approximately one acre of land is lost due to urbanization and highway construction alone for every person added to the U.S. population.
# This means that only 0.6 acres of farmland would be available to grow food for each American in 2050, as opposed to the 1.8 acres per capita available today. At least 1.2 acres per person is required in order to maintain current American dietary standards. Food prices are projected to increase 3 to 5-fold within this period.
# If present population growth, domestic food consumption and topsoil loss trends continue, the U.S. will most likely cease to be a food exporter by approximately 2025 because food grown in the U.S. will be needed for domestic purposes.

This is a BIG problem

Especially for all of the people dependent on US agricultural exports. 'Screw them, we need food' is a valid opinion. But by 2100, the birthrate will have either gone down, or the starvation rate will have gone up. Current population growth rate is unsustainable with CURRENT agricultural technology. This may change when it becomes economical to build greenhouses and desalinate water in the desert because food prices have risen above the cost of growing them in said environment.

It, in my opinion, is a foolhardy argument to say 'we have plenty of space, so we will never reach a population crisis.'

What a lot of people don't know is that even if they only live in a 2000 square foot house, their net resource footprint, put into the perspective of how much land worth of resource production is necessary to sustain them, is significantly larger than what they can immediately see. Farm land, factories, roads to bring factory goods to the people, highways to move places, land to dedicate to bio fossil fuel production once petro fossil fuels runs out (or alternatively, build new renewable or non-exhaustible fuel (nuclear) powered plants), transmission lines to get them their electricity, etc... etc..

Right now, it would appear that Cuba is actually one of the most efficient providers of standards of living per hectare of land used per capita. We might all live like Cubans one day, if our population keeps spiraling out of control. Which wouldn't be bad, but would be much different than the world you know at the moment.

Go here for details.

Don't fear the creepy green light.

If you thing that's what the tragedy of the commons is about, I suggest you read the fucking article because you missed the damn point.

We've just seen governments worldwide deliver a trillion dollar windfall to their corporate masters. No attempt was made to hide the fact that this money was an explicit reward for mismanagement and stupidity. The logic - what there is of it - behind the giveaway depends utterly on the implicit assumption that a healthy economy requires cancerous growth. The decision-making process for this bailout proceeded with lightning speed over the space of a few months.

Meanwhile, scientists have spent the past three or four decades patiently building the case for climate change. Scientists have persisted in continuing this research even though there is no personal reward to speak of, and even given the spittle spraying them in the face from rabid industrialists and climate change deniers. The case for climate change has been made many times over. More evidence is piling up even with a budget of a few hundredths of one-percent of the corporate bailout. Our climate is a shared resource for the entire world with far more economic impact than 100 Goldman Sachs.

Consider two alternatives:

1) The industrialists and/or the fundamentalists are right. That is, either we could burn dioxin laced sulfurous coal in vast piles on every street corner and Mother Earth would thank us and beg for more - or, the rapture is fast approaching and the faithful will be sucked up to heaven leaving the damned to clean up the mess.

2) The tree huggers are right. The Earth is fragile and we're fast approaching (or already past) a tipping point that will usher in climate change of a scale that hasn't been seen for millions of years. In the mean time, we are permanently degrading our stores of natural resources. It will be hard to recover from an ice age when all the fossil fuel has been burned.

What to do? What to do? Given these two choices, what to do?

Well, look at it this way, if #1 is true then what's the harm in advocating, adopting and implementing prudent environmental policies? All that happens is that the children of the rich get better water and air and parkland and healthier and more plentiful food along with the rest of us. (Or perhaps that when the rapture comes, we hand over the keys to a planet that has been better tended.)

Whereas, if there's even a small likelihood of #2, a society would have to be insane to continue to permit unregulated industries to squander resources and to pollute and to cheat on paying the full lifecycle costs of their operations (http://dieoff.org/page95.htm). One doesn't have to believe that an airtight case has been made (yet) for manmade climate change - one just needs to recognize that no coherent case at all has been made against manmade climate change.

Environmentally conscious policies are simply common sense. Don't ask how good the case for manmade climate change has to be to justify taking environmental action, ask rather how good a case would have to be made against climate change to justify doing nothing.

The fundamental point doesn't have much to do with environmental impact, although large data centers do have a large footprint in whatever units. The real issue is who pays the price and whether society should reward such behavior. The only people who would argue for spam providing a "benefit" are the spammers and meta-spammers themselves.

The economic footprint of an activity almost always comes down to the tragedy of the commons. Not just why should society put up with such antisocial and expensive behavior - but how can we practically dissuade malfactors from engaging in such?

That said, it is often surprisingly straightforward to compute the expense (in some measure) of an activity. For instance, the marginal cost of gzip versus Rice compression was computed to be $2.83 more per image for an archival project I was involved in. The precise cost would be different now (three years later) but would be quite significant.

As with spam, an archive is a store and forward (and replicate and persist) system. Each permanent copy has an expense. Each temporary copy has an expense. Each network replication has an expense. It is the aggregate throughput of the workflow. I wouldn't personally think that carbon footprint was the best way to express this, but someone has to pay that cost - and very frequently it isn't the party creating the mess in the first place.

Agreed, the cars will not go away. However, the USA imports 2/3 of the oil used to power its fleet of automobiles. Shortly after the US economy collapses (2009? 2008? 2012 at the latest), the oil exporters will no longer trade oil for (then worthless) dollars. At this time, the cars will still be there, but they won't be moving. This will mark the end of the American love affair with the automobile.

Enjoy your car while you can, and take a road trip soon. Pretty soon, there will be no more road trips in the USA.

Overwhelming evidence suggests the above statements are true. Overwhelming evidence also suggests that most people will deny it right up until it happens, and possibly for some time afterwards.

Suggested reading:
The Five Stages of Collapse
Jay Hanson's Die Off Resources
Scientific references about peak oil

Around here all the encrypted-by-default APs the cable company (or whoever) doles out shit all over channels 1, 6, & 11 and interfere with my neighbors' intentionally open APs. I'm sure most of these people don't even know they have wireless. So much for that.

"I think you're confusing oil shale with plain old shale. The Bakken is a traditional shale formation, so recovery costs are not that high. Wells are generally economic as long as the price of oil stay above around $70/bbl. And no this won't make the Dakota's like West Virginia. The reason the Bakken is now economic is because of advances in horizontal drilling. "

Old news(1970's)... we've known about th US's vast oil shale desposits for a long time..
the problem is that OIL recovery from deeply buried Oil Shale is a NET ENERGY SINK!!!

At least one oil company (Shell) has been experimenting for a long time in various unsuccessful attempts to reverse that energy ratio.
To date, no commercially viable oil production has been produced from these deeply buried oil shale deposits.

The resulting Kerogen recovered requires extensive cracking(in a H2 rich enviroment)/pryolysis energy input to make it into something useful.

It doesn't matter what the cost per Barrel for oil recovered frm shale is, unless you've tapped a source of free energy.

EVERY SINGLE point you bring up is completely refuted here:

DIEOFF.ORG

RS

Whatever the cause, it doesn't change the fact that it still makes the most sense on an individual level to follow suit.

1. dramatically reduced my wife's commute
   
2. provided carpool opportunities for my wife
   
3. eliminated my need to drive to work (I walk or bike except in bad weather)
   

I do wonder about this. What is the threshold where people should start to take-up arms?

If the doors to WalMart were locked and there was no food or other goodies on the shelves.

Anything short of that, and the shit train keeps on running. No one cares. Of course, that day is rapidly approaching, so take heart ... sort of.

Collapse of civilisation is not that far away unless we somehow manage in the next few decades to really conquer the solar system (as a settling environment). The fact is we have grown so used to being subsidized by fossil fuels that we would be nothing without them. Renewable sources of energy cannot account for more than a few percent of the energy we consume at the current population which is bound to keep increasing superexponentially until collapse (Nobody but the chinese is doing any effort in regard to population control).

Add to that that our current agricultural system is vastly less efficient (energy wise) than older agricultural systmems. I know, those of you trained in the economists's "resources are infinite" paradygm, we can get lots more per hectare nowadays, with much less people working the field. Keep this in mind though, in the old days, all the people and animals working the farms got sustenance from those farms, and yielded a small suplus that allowed a fraction of the population to live in cities... all the energy came from the sunlight the field got. Nowadays, that is not sufficient. Enormous amounts of energy are required in addition to sunlight, from driving the farming equipment, to producing the fertilizers etc. A modern farm has a negative energy balance as compared to the positive (although apparently lower to those ignoring fossil fuel input) of more ancient forms of agriculture.

World food production has already peaked in the late 90s. We are heading towards a peak in petroleum within the next decade or two. With increased demand on food supplies, less and more expensive fossil fuels to maintain food production, and a higher demand of foodstuffs to be used as fuel for vehicles, collapse is inevitable. All the more so, because although those warnings have been available for decades, no one has been interested in paying attention. Nobody wants to be told that their cosy way of life is unsustainable. "They" will think of something.

Well practical fusion power is only 40 years away. But again, it has been 40 years away for the last 50 years or so. Break even is barely reached now... and it's only accounting for the energy input directly into the system that creates the fusion. It doesn't take into account the energy required to manufacture and transport components (and structure) over the lifetime of the plant, and the losses in the transport system or the energy required by construction and maintenance of the transport system. How long before a self-sustaining system can be produced? Do we have enough time?

The thing is, without a timely debate, with widespread information dissemination of those looming problems, NOTHING can be done on time. The attitude "They will think of something" only discourages the debate that may actually see solutions being presented that would at least soften the landing if not prevent it altogether. But nobody wants to talk about it. It's taboo to even consider it. It's scaremongering. This comment is going to be modded down into oblivion on slashdot because it is scary to consider the possibilities. But how can we avoid the most likely outcome if we refuse to consider our current trajectory and study means to divert it? Refusing to discuss the subject is not going to solve it.

For more info, please consult the following link: http://dieoff.org/

We are completely and utterly fucked - I think the next 50 years is going to see an economic collapse of epic proportions as more and more people fight over less and lass oil. The noble niceties of space travel will go by the boards as the ruling classes scramble to prevent food riots and revolutions. I expect the first big shock between 2010 and 2014 as the easiest oil peaks out and skids down the Hubbert curve. After that, some time in the 2020s, the tar sand oil will peak and decline. The historical *total* peak of all petroleum liquids (when taken as an aggregate average) will be likely prove to have been sometime this year or perhaps last year, for the increases in Tar Sand oils won't offset the fact that nearly all the major producers are in decline, some dramatically collapsing (Mexico and North Sea) some flatlining and eroding (the Mid East, Venezuela) and some long past their prime and slowly dying (USA, Iran, etc.)

These numbers on this are easy to find.

Fusion would help a number of things, but so much of our infrastructure and materials are based in petroleum, that even Fusion may not be sustainable. I suspect it won't be, and furthermore, for all the cheerleading around Fusion, it's still decades away from workability *under present plans*, and should these plans fail, which they may, we'll still be (again) decades away from Fusion.

Solar power is good in a localised sense, but it won't generate the power soon enough to compensate, and what is every important: you can't eat electricity, but we DO eat petroleum (fertiliser and pesticides).

So, overall I think the space program is admirable, and I do think we need to send more robotic probes out there to continue our understanding of the universe, but the kind of "golly gosh jeekers" cheerleading for putting people in space is utterly retarded.

RS

Firm conjecture:

http://www.dieoff.org/page15.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page112.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page224.htm

Science:

http://www.dieoff.org/page140.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page178.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page170.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page199.htm

You say:

Suffice it to say, many of the things you Observe are correct, but your interpretations and the plans based on them are quite suspect.

but you don't say which.

Then:

What you base your interpretations and action plans on is verifiable fact. This gives you false confidence that you're right when combined with the consensus of the people you associate with.

Well, what would you have me base my plans in? WISHFUL THINKING? Read the above articles. If you still disagree, then a: you really don't get it, and b: at least when you're starving in some transit camp in Colorado, you can't say you weren't properly warned.

RS

Firm conjecture:

http://www.dieoff.org/page15.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page112.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page224.htm

Science:

http://www.dieoff.org/page140.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page178.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page170.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page199.htm

You say:

Suffice it to say, many of the things you Observe are correct, but your interpretations and the plans based on them are quite suspect.

but you don't say which.

Then:

What you base your interpretations and action plans on is verifiable fact. This gives you false confidence that you're right when combined with the consensus of the people you associate with.

Well, what would you have me base my plans in? WISHFUL THINKING? Read the above articles. If you still disagree, then a: you really don't get it, and b: at least when you're starving in some transit camp in Colorado, you can't say you weren't properly warned.

RS

Firm conjecture:

http://www.dieoff.org/page15.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page112.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page224.htm

Science:

http://www.dieoff.org/page140.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page178.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page170.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page199.htm

You say:

Suffice it to say, many of the things you Observe are correct, but your interpretations and the plans based on them are quite suspect.

but you don't say which.

Then:

What you base your interpretations and action plans on is verifiable fact. This gives you false confidence that you're right when combined with the consensus of the people you associate with.

Well, what would you have me base my plans in? WISHFUL THINKING? Read the above articles. If you still disagree, then a: you really don't get it, and b: at least when you're starving in some transit camp in Colorado, you can't say you weren't properly warned.

RS

Firm conjecture:

http://www.dieoff.org/page15.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page112.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page224.htm

Science:

http://www.dieoff.org/page140.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page178.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page170.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page199.htm

You say:

Suffice it to say, many of the things you Observe are correct, but your interpretations and the plans based on them are quite suspect.

but you don't say which.

Then:

What you base your interpretations and action plans on is verifiable fact. This gives you false confidence that you're right when combined with the consensus of the people you associate with.

Well, what would you have me base my plans in? WISHFUL THINKING? Read the above articles. If you still disagree, then a: you really don't get it, and b: at least when you're starving in some transit camp in Colorado, you can't say you weren't properly warned.

RS

Firm conjecture:

http://www.dieoff.org/page15.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page112.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page224.htm

Science:

http://www.dieoff.org/page140.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page178.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page170.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page199.htm

You say:

Suffice it to say, many of the things you Observe are correct, but your interpretations and the plans based on them are quite suspect.

but you don't say which.

Then:

What you base your interpretations and action plans on is verifiable fact. This gives you false confidence that you're right when combined with the consensus of the people you associate with.

Well, what would you have me base my plans in? WISHFUL THINKING? Read the above articles. If you still disagree, then a: you really don't get it, and b: at least when you're starving in some transit camp in Colorado, you can't say you weren't properly warned.

RS

Firm conjecture:

http://www.dieoff.org/page15.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page112.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page224.htm

Science:

http://www.dieoff.org/page140.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page178.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page170.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page199.htm

You say:

Suffice it to say, many of the things you Observe are correct, but your interpretations and the plans based on them are quite suspect.

but you don't say which.

Then:

What you base your interpretations and action plans on is verifiable fact. This gives you false confidence that you're right when combined with the consensus of the people you associate with.

Well, what would you have me base my plans in? WISHFUL THINKING? Read the above articles. If you still disagree, then a: you really don't get it, and b: at least when you're starving in some transit camp in Colorado, you can't say you weren't properly warned.

RS

Firm conjecture:

http://www.dieoff.org/page15.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page112.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page224.htm

Science:

http://www.dieoff.org/page140.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page178.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page170.htm http://www.dieoff.org/page199.htm

You say:

Suffice it to say, many of the things you Observe are correct, but your interpretations and the plans based on them are quite suspect.

but you don't say which.

Then:

What you base your interpretations and action plans on is verifiable fact. This gives you false confidence that you're right when combined with the consensus of the people you associate with.

Well, what would you have me base my plans in? WISHFUL THINKING? Read the above articles. If you still disagree, then a: you really don't get it, and b: at least when you're starving in some transit camp in Colorado, you can't say you weren't properly warned.

RS

http://www.dieoff.org

RS

Petroleum is a one time gift, and we are squandering it on a bunch of obese retards driving SUVs three blocks to go pick up a pack of smokes and a six pack of the piss they call beer. Every gallon of oil blown on an Escalade is a gallon that won't go to heat their grandkid's house in 30 years. Stupid myopic self-centered idiots.

Hybrid cars in 2020? What we need is NO CARS in 2020.

RS

However, more sunlight hits the planet in one second than we can use in an entire year. If we split this collection between solar panels and plants for biofuel, we could easily provide enough power for everyone, and without having to build giant centralized generation systems. Remember the blackout in 2003? Well, imagine if we all had solar panels on our roofs and batteries in our basements and more efficient loads on all of it. None of that would have happened.

To achieve an all-solar energy system on Earth requires covering 25% of the Earth's land mass with solar panels (at current efficiency levels) to meet our needs, which seems impractical to me. This number assumes a western lifestyle for the current poor masses, but I think that's an admirable goal. Note, that 10% is then no longer available for forestry and presumably needs weeding.

Don't get me wrong, local co-generation to reduce the size of the grid and centralized usage is great, just not enough to cover everything. I'd love to see a nuclear/wind/solar/wave coalition.

Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves labelled as industry stooges.

An old quote from Lindzen, one of about three names dropped regularly by MMGW deniers. Despite his sob story, Lindzen isn't exactly having a hard time looking for work; as there are plenty of free-market economist groups who are directly threatened by the notion that companies may have to be responsible for their effects on the world.

Meanwhile, Lindzen's own widely-peddled MMGW denial has caused federal funds for GW to shrink under a Republican and industry-loving legislature.

Oil companies -- plural, eh? Which company besides ExxonMobil are you referring to? Most oil companies nowadays acknowledge global warming. Some are even publicly speaking out about it. Heck, when a news site like CommonDreams finds reason to commend them for their attitude toward global warming (CommonDreams is a liberal news site that makes The Nation read like FreeRepublic.com), perhaps you should stop lumping everyone into the same boat.

Oil companies -- plural, eh? Which company besides ExxonMobil are you referring to? Most oil companies nowadays acknowledge global warming. Some are even publicly speaking out about it. Heck, when a news site like CommonDreams finds reason to commend them for their attitude toward global warming (CommonDreams is a liberal news site that makes The Nation read like FreeRepublic.com), perhaps you should stop lumping everyone into the same boat.

Shell believes in global warming. So does BP. In fact, most oil companies do. Exxon Mobil is just a dinosaur. They're pretty bad on every front.

I always hate it when people talk about "oil companies" as if they're one big, monolithic entity.

the production of hydrogen depends on the availability of energy and water

The large amount of energy required to [produce and deliver consumable energy with hydrogen fuel] leaves around 25% for practical use [...]

"More energy is needed to isolate hydrogen from natural compounds than can ever be recovered from its use"

"In other words, you think the best way to address a famine is to let people die?"

"The ability to pull oneself up by one's own bootstraps is a very rare ability which relies far more on luck than most people realize."

i do not think you can protect the environment by creating regulations that big businesses wont follow, but by making the market more free, reducing taxes, and removing some of the restrictions, you can actually protect the environment economically, which protects the environment physically.

See, that's what I was saying. You just provided the example of the point at which Libertarians and Greens disagree. Libertarians use the argument you just mentioned (which is that big businesses will ignore environmental regulations but will voluntarily stop polluting because their customers demand it), while Greens believe exactly the opposite (that the government can succeed in coercing big businesses to stop polluting, but that they wouldn't do so voluntarily because their customers would fail to demand it).

However, Greens can believe this and still believe in civil liberties and personal freedom, for a few reasons: first, they make a huge distinction between individuals and businesses. Individuals have freedom, but businesses need to be regulated in some areas because otherwise they'll act like amoral sociopaths (even though they're made of people, bureaucracy allows people to rationalize away immoral decisions by distributing them across the company). Second, because they believe that a clean environment increases freedom for everyone, it justifies protecting the environment even at the cost of the presonal freedom of those few who want to pollute.

About that second point: you say that Libertarians will support the environment because they realize it's in their best interests in the long run, and I agree. However, there will always be some short-sighted or greedy individuals who believe that it is in their rational self-interest to pollute in order to give themselves a competitive advantage over everyone who doesn't do so. And according to game theory, they're right -- but that creates a problem for society as a whole. This is the premise of The Tragedy of the Commons, and explains why Greens believe regulation is necessary.

And yet we continue to outpace developed nations in GDP growth. You keep the programming prize and I'll keep my large home and SUV.

GDP doesn't really tell you everything about the average standard of living in a nation.
http://dieoff.org/page11.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_domestic_produc t#Controversies

Sure, if you look at the richest people in a country, then you are better off in the US. If you remove that group, the US doesn't come off that great compared to other developed nations.

Efficiency is defined by Pareto efficiency ... Here is a link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficient [wikipedia.org]

The subject article may improve both $/Watt and Watt/(Mfg Watt), if the concentrator requires less power to make than the solar cells. So much the better.

Of course, we don't really have to worry about burning fossil fuels, as it appears they'll all be gone within 50 years anyway :)

I'm calling bullshit here... Even this hand waver says 1.2 acres... Personally, I think that's quite unrealistic. I've been poor, lived rural, and survived with a family of four on what a 20' x 60' (0.028 acre) vegetable garden yielded for 6 months. I'm guessing the extra acreage is to account for all those burgers you guys are eating.

Here is a very well written article that offers more in-depth theories on how people make conscious decisions: Decision Making and Problem Solving

The best theory offered to relate to this article IMO is the prespective theory. It hints on the idea that when faced with a problem consciously, humans try to use various decision making heuristics that are more geared towards simple such as a "right/wrong" problem. However, the world is complex with different value systems, different perspectives, and a lot of other variables that must be taken into consideration. Our "simple" decision-making algorithms tend to break down when faced with higher level choices. Maybe on some unconscious level, we actually use methods more befitting to complexity.

And before anyone accuses me of being a doom-mongering tree-hugger, I'm actually a doom-mongering oilfield geologist. Sorry to disturb your stereotypes.

Too bad we're all in this boat together.

Please read The Tragedy of the Commons.

Important info:
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/
http://dieoff.org/synopsis.htm
http://www.peakoil.net/

First, I read something like Olduvai Theory which paints such a dire picture of our civilization, basically proposing that we have collectively "shot our wad", and that we have wasted our one chance at an industrialized society.

Then, Kurzweil paints an equally extreme but opposite view of the world. One is left wondering which to trust more.

I hope Kurzweil is right, but I really worry about a return to the stoneage. I'd make a lousy caveman.