Gyroscopic Investing

So we are faced with:

Burning fossil fuels does release CO2.

CO2 has reached levels not seen for 100000 years.

Cows also release lots of methane that also is a more potent greenhouse gas (melting tundra also does that).

What is a fact to one person or to most people won't be for all people.

Quite often people in a minority of one are correct. More often they are not.

To my mind the best option is for those of us to believe in global warming to personally not buy the gas guzzler or the long haul flight and to personally vote for people who in our minds talk sense on this. For those who feel that it is all just a misreading of the situation, then you do your thing and I'll cross my fingers and hope that you are right for all of our sakes.

stone wrote: What is a fact to one person or to most people won't be for all people.

LOL!  That reminds me of Keynes' famous quote: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"

MG

Edsanville,

I have seen many lists like this in the past regarding scientists who disagree with anthropogenic global warming. The majority of scientists signing on to such lists are experts in a field unrelated to climatology. I find this a bit like asking a geologist for advice about how to cure a cancer in my body. While it is true that climatologists are not 100% unanimous, your own article stated that 97.4% of climatologists and just under 90% of all earth scientists think "significant" man made global warming is occurring.

Let me ask you a question. If you had a medical issue and you visited 100 doctors that specialized in the area specific to your problem and 98 of them were in agreement about the cause and the course of action to take, would you feel comfortable accepting their conclusion? Of course, one of the other two who was "doubtful" regarding the diagnosis (keep in mind they have no proof to suggest the 98% are mistaken) could be right, but the odds are clearly not in their favor.

Now, lets move off the topic of global warming entirely and imagine it doesn't exist.

100% of scientists agree that the fossil fuels that we are burning are nonrenewable. They will at some point eventually run out. As their supplies continue to draw down, the price and difficulty to extract them will increase. In addition, the procuration process and burning of these fossil fuels has a deleterious effect on the environment (oil spills, strip mining, aquifer contamination) and on human health (smog and other airborne contaminants).

What if by thoughtfully redesigning our society and economy over two generations we could greatly reduce the poisoning of our environment, improve our health, and deal with the possibility of global warming? Movement in the direction simply requires people to confront the forces of inertia that continue to push us in a direction that 100% of scientists would agree are not sustainable for multiple generations. In addition, I would also contend that anyone who has visited a properly designed city that is built at a walkable human scale with functioning public transit would find it a much healthier, lively, and pleasant place to live than the sprawling god awful metropolises that have gutted the concept of community. Through intelligent, thoughtful design we can not only address the issue of the environment and energy, but also improve the quality of our lives and communities.

Finally, I would also contend that what has happened over the last 50 years has been the greatest and most radical deviation from the mean of human history that has ever existed. If you look at any chart that graphs human population growth, energy consumption, money growth etc. etc. ...every chart shows almost a vertical exponential spike in the data. It is time to start to make our way back to the mean on our our volition, rather than be forced there by the cruel hand of nature.

If you ask me whether I am optimistic about human's ability to address long term problems such as global warming or resource depletion, my answer would be that everything that I have seen in my life would suggest that in general they are pathetically incapable.

One of the dad's friends has been a smoker for 50 years. The doctors have been telling this guy for 30 years that if he doesn't stop smoking he is going to have some serious health complications in the future. Well, every day this guy would wake up, take a deep breath, proclaim that he was breathing and healthy, and proceed to light up a cigarette. Deep down he probably knew that the doctors were right, but damn he liked smoking and by every indication that he could see, he was in perfect working order. Years passed like this and after a while the idea probably started to slip into his mind that maybe these doctors were wrong. He had been smoking for years now and it hadn't caused any health problems yet.

Well, 6 months ago it finally happened. He had some massive health issues that were greatly exacerbated by (if not directly linked to) his smoking and generally unhealthy lifestyle. While he was lying there on his deathbed with tubes coming out of his body, his doctor told him again, you have to stop smoking. Well, it seems that it took a crisis for this guy to finally wake up to reality. He came out of the hospital a few months later and hasn't touched a cigarette since. He quit cold turkey.

In general, 99% of humans only react to crisis. Sad....but unfortunately true.

This can make life a bit distressing for the 1% who have the capacity to think long term.

doodle wrote: This can make life a bit distressing for the 1% who have the capacity to think long term.

Its greatly admirable to have such beliefs, but I wouldn't use arthopogenic global warming as a means to accomplishing that end.  There's wise old saying along the likes of...  "Never argue with an idiot or soon people can't tell the difference."  What that really means is that in the past many skeptics, scientists, politicians, and other ego and profit-driven scaremongers that laymen groupies idolized ("guilt by association") have all had their credibility and reputations tarnished once the current "facts" become better known, disputed or change over time.  Their 15 minutes is then over and becomes a footnote in history.  This happens with ridiculously alarming frequency over and over and the only reason we're not generally aware of such endless past failures is our built-in biological bias to forget about such embarassing situations because frankly, we're all embarassed in hindsight when we abandon reason for passionate emotional impulses.

BTW, rank-and-file Republican' brains are especially hard-wired towards detecting negativity/faults in society or issues.  While I wouldn't exactly call them "Intelligent Optimists", to dismiss them out of hand is to discard potentially valuable information.  (Before anyone gets upset, I am not referring to anyone on this board!)

MG

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS_denialism

Let's not forget that Peter Duesberg the Nobel Prize winning biomedical scientist doesn't believe HIV causes AIDS and went all out to convince the world of that.

There are a lot of people in the world. At any one time some will be suffering from florid psychosis and more will just have odd ball ideas. We can't expect everyone to agree on anything.

I also think people need to take on board just how much fumbling around in the dark there is at the frontier of science and yet how thoroughly confirmed those previous findings can become once the field progresses. The public sees the doubt at the frontier and that makes them doubt the entire field.

It is a bit like explorers mapping a new world. They will see to the horizon with their telescopes and make a very poor map of the horizon. Once a few ships have sailed passed a place, the map of that place may be sound BUT someone who doesn't have a feel for the process may see how much squabbling there is over the map of the horizon and that may make them reject even the map of the well traveled lands.

Science normally proceeds by people designing an experiment to distinguish whether things are like hypothesis A or like hypothesis B and then the result comes in showing that un-thought-of hypothesis C is probably correct but a new experiment is needed to distinguish that from the alternative hypothesis D etc etc.

Just in case you are thinking that you are not being heard, Doodle, I agree with everything you said. Very well stated; nothing much more to add.

Thanks BearBones...

I think most people realize in their gut that the house that we have built for ourselves is sitting on a flimsy foundation which itself rests on a shaky pile of optimistic assumptions.

I am a member of various forums where people have finally decided to take action (both individually and at the local level) to address some of the problems we have discussed in this thread.

Ultimately (and ironically) I think that the solution to these massive transnational problems might have to be initiated at the local level (bottom up, not top down). Individual citizens spreading the word and taking action to create sustainable lives within a system that encourages exactly the opposite.   Once people begin to question the present system of endless consumption and growth and alter their lives in a way that runs counter to these forces, I have generally found that they gain an amazing feeling of independence, freedom, and well being. Many of my friends have begun to downsize and simplify their lives and find it to be a very uplifting experience.

Here is a quote by Thoreau which sums this up pretty well:

I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of. Better if they had been born in the open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with clearer eyes what field they were called to labor in. Who made them serfs of the soil? Why should they eat their sixty acres, when man is condemned to eat only his peck of dirt? Why should they begin digging their graves as soon as they are born? They have got to live a man's life, pushing all these things before them, and get on as well as they can. How many a poor immortal soul have I met well-nigh crushed and smothered under its load, creeping down the road of life, pushing before it a barn seventy-five feet by forty, its Augean stables never cleansed, and one hundred acres of land, tillage, mowing, pasture, and woodlot! The portionless, who struggle with no such unnecessary inherited encumbrances, find it labor enough to subdue and cultivate a few cubic feet of flesh.

But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon plowed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool's life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before.

George Carlin's view on Global Warming:

The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles…hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worlwidefloods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages…And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet…the planet…the planet isn’t going anywhere. WE ARE!

doodle wrote: Once people begin to question the present system of endless consumption and growth and alter their lives in a way that runs counter to these forces, I have generally found that they gain an amazing feeling of independence, freedom, and well being.

Just beginning this process myself (very beginning), and I can see how it will be liberating. Much harder than it seems, though, as shown in the quote from Thoreau. I recall from your other posts that you have learned to live on very little, and I find this inspiring.

Boeing737 wrote: George Carlin's view on Global Warming...

Yes, from a grand perspective, it is all ok, trash or no trash, global warming or not. Our little planet has a trivial place in this vast universe, after all, and it will eventually melt in the heat of the sun. The only ones that should really care are us.

Just beginning this process myself (very beginning), and I can see how it will be liberating. Much harder than it seems, though, as shown in the quote from Thoreau. I recall from your other posts that you have learned to live on very little, and I find this inspiring.

It is certainly a process. I would approach it the same way that someone should start working out at the gym. Make small goals and then gradually work towards them. Don't overdo it in the beginning...just ease into it.

My first step started with clothing. Once I finally whittled my mountain of clothing down to a reasonable amount, I made it a habit to not bring anything new in unless something old went out.

A good primer if you haven't already checked it out is Jacob Lund Fisker's "21 Day Makeover" available in the left hand menu column on his site: http://earlyretirementextreme.com/

He pretty much covers all the bases....

BearBones,

Here is an article about Nicolas Berggruen (the homeless billionaire) for inspiration....

http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2008/05/19/ ... llionaire/

edsanville wrote: I've also got to add that science is not determined by a "vote."  99% of scientists can and have been wrong in the past.  The beauty of science is that one piece of strong contrary evidence can prove 99% of scientists wrong.  It's happened time and time again through scientific history...

If we could travel back just 30 years and did a bunch of surveys, I bet we could turn up a lot of majority hypotheses and theories that are laughable to most scientists today.

The word “consensus”? implies a predominant opinion. Opinions  can never be substituted for established fact.   I’m reminded  of an episode involving Albert Einstein.  In the early 1930’s, the Nazis came to power.  Einstein, a Jew, then emigrated to the US.  The Nazis didn’t believe in “Jewish physics”? so they organized a bunch of physicists including several Nobel Prize winners, into publishing a book called “100 Physicists Against Einstein.”?  When asked by an American reporter to comment on this book Einstein replied, “If my theories were truly wrong, it wouldn’t take 100 physicists to prove me wrong.  It would take only one verifiable fact.”?
In another version Einstein supposed said, “If my theories were truly wrong, it wouldn’t take 100 physicists to prove me wrong.  It would take only one.”?

Doodle, I really enjoyed your articulation in Post #80. It gets to the real issue. The issue is more than global warming. It's how we invision our lives and what we need to experience around us in order to feel fully alive. Who wouldn't want to have the gift of clean air, pure water, forests and streams; an environment where it feels safe to breathe? If this is our real wealth and legacy, what are we willing to exchange for that?

I love the scene in the movie "Bad Santa" where the main character says that he understands why his partner in crime is going to shoot him but he doesn't understand why his partner in crime wants stuff rather than simply leaving it in the shop.

Lazyboy,

Doodle, I really enjoyed your articulation in Post #80. It gets to the real issue. The issue is more than global warming. It's how we invision our lives and what we need to experience around us in order to feel fully alive. Who wouldn't want to have the gift of clean air, pure water, forests and streams; an environment where it feels safe to breathe? If this is our real wealth and legacy, what are we willing to exchange for that?

I have come to the conclusion that using a divisive issue like Global Warming in many ways undermines our country's ability to envision a clean and sustainable energy future. I think that the movement would be better served by discussing quality of life issues. Who is against a clean environment? Did anyones heart not break to watch months of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico? What about if the energy that people consumed was produced in their own communities and they had to wake up every morning to the the sight of a smokestack spewing untold pollution into their air? How would they feel if the couldn't bathe in, or drink the water from their tap because their aquifer had been contaminated by fracking the shale gas underneath it?


Who is against vibrant and healthy communities? Do people really enjoy sitting in traffic for an hour just to get to the office? Do they like the fact that they have to jump in the car to accomplish even the most menial of tasks? Do they enjoy spending 25% of their earned income on transportation rather than on entertainment, travel, education or myriad other options? Do they like the fact that there is nothing happening in their communities after 6 pm?


Who is against energy security? Do people want to send billions of dollars to overseas oil barons rather than invest it back into local energy projects? Do they want to sacrifice the lives of thousands of American soldiers to protect sources of energy that lie thousands of miles away in one of the worlds most volatile regions?

I can't think of any rational person who would not agree with everything that I just wrote above. You ask the question of "what are we willing to exchange for that", which implies that we are making a sacrifice and climbing down the rungs of the ladder to a lower standard of living. I don't see it that way....I see only positive outcomes to be gained. Sure, a future like this will include change, but do it over two or three generations and its effects will be virtually imperceptible.

One of the primary impediments to getting people to join onto this movement is that there isn't necessarily anyone that stands to make a large profit off of it, and therefore this message isn't being bombarded down upon people since they are old enough to watch television. I often wonder for example what would happen to people's diets if all the commercials showed a bunch of attractive, cool people laughing and having a great time while eating plates full of apples and carrots rather than Big-Macs and Coca-Cola? What about if instead of watching hundreds of car commercials everyday with people unrealistically zipping through mountain roads delightfully unencumbered by the realities of gridlock traffic or speed limits, they could watch hundreds of commercials for skateboards, bicycles, or walking shoes being throughly enjoyed by people happily moving about their communities free from the stresses of fighting traffic, driving around in circles for parking spaces, or shelling out hundreds of dollars for gasoline?

Today's society and the decisions that people take are not a natural result of "who they are", they are carefully constructed by profit hungry mega-corporations who tell them 24 hours a day who "they should be". Corporations tell us what our clothes should look like, what our houses should look like, what our transportation should look like, what food we should desire to eat, etc. etc. etc. Many people choose not to question what their corporate overlords tell them.....but, for those that step back and question, they see the possibility to create an alternative healthier and more fulfilling future for ourselves.

Check out rush-hour in Copenhagen. This is intelligent design: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVz_FZ6ziJk

Coming to New-York: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9Zcs5mE0Ww

http://biomassmagazine.com/articles/216 ... uce-energy

doodle, Medium Tex says that renewable energy would never work but to my mind huge swathes of the sea could be used to grow seaweed for biomass. The seaweed could grow from ropes in the open ocean and actually provide a haven for fish etc rather than having a negative impact. The algae themselves and the microbes that are used to digest them could be co-engineered to make the process very efficient.

When you consider just how much solar energy falls on the surface of the earth it seems ludicrous to me to say that we are dependent on fossil fuels.

stone wrote: When you consider just how much solar energy falls on the surface of the earth it seems ludicrous to me to say that we are dependent on fossil fuels.

Fossil fuels are really just the intensely concentrated energy from sunlight that fell on the earth millions of years ago.

We like using it more than energy from current sunlight because it is vastly more compact, versatile and cheap compared to harvesting the sunlight that is currently falling on the earth.

Doodle, I am simply going to play devil's advocate to give you a sense of what the other side of your argument looks like.

doodle wrote: Lazyboy,

Doodle, I really enjoyed your articulation in Post #80. It gets to the real issue. The issue is more than global warming. It's how we invision our lives and what we need to experience around us in order to feel fully alive. Who wouldn't want to have the gift of clean air, pure water, forests and streams; an environment where it feels safe to breathe? If this is our real wealth and legacy, what are we willing to exchange for that?

I have come to the conclusion that using a divisive issue like Global Warming in many ways undermines our country's ability to envision a clean and sustainable energy future. I think that the movement would be better served by discussing quality of life issues. Who is against a clean environment? Did anyones heart not break to watch months of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico? What about if the energy that people consumed was produced in their own communities and they had to wake up every morning to the the sight of a smokestack spewing untold pollution into their air? How would they feel if the couldn't bathe in, or drink the water from their tap because their aquifer had been contaminated by fracking the shale gas underneath it?

No one wants a polluted environment, but they do want a modern high consumption lifestyle, and this lifestyle by definition throws off a lot of waste products.  Locally produced energy is far less efficient than the current more centralized production, and that's why it is produced the way it is.  If it was cheaper to produce it locally, it would be produced locally.

Who is against vibrant and healthy communities? Do people really enjoy sitting in traffic for an hour just to get to the office? Do they like the fact that they have to jump in the car to accomplish even the most menial of tasks? Do they enjoy spending 25% of their earned income on transportation rather than on entertainment, travel, education or myriad other options? Do they like the fact that there is nothing happening in their communities after 6 pm?

I would say apparently that is what they like because that is how they have arranged their lives.  It may not make any sense to you or me, but it apparently makes sense to them or they wouldn't do it.  They certainly don't have to do it.  They could live in a smaller house and drive a cheaper car and it would no longer be necessary to do many of those things.

Who is against energy security? Do people want to send billions of dollars to overseas oil barons rather than invest it back into local energy projects? Do they want to sacrifice the lives of thousands of American soldiers to protect sources of energy that lie thousands of miles away in one of the worlds most volatile regions?

What does "energy security" mean?  Does it mean having access to the cheapest energy supplies available on world markets?  If so, then that's the system we currently have.  As far as whether it is a good ides to use the U.S. military to keep cheap energy supplies flowing, it has been the role of militaries throughout history to keep trade channels open, there is really nothing new there.  The American people had the opportunity in 2004 to vote against resource wars, and they re-elected President Bush who was an unashamed resource warrior (just like his dad).

From an economic perspective, it doesn't really make any sense to invest scarce capital in an energy project that generates fewer net BTUs than can be generated elsewhere in the energy production infrastructure through a similar investment.

I can't think of any rational person who would not agree with everything that I just wrote above. You ask the question of "what are we willing to exchange for that", which implies that we are making a sacrifice and climbing down the rungs of the ladder to a lower standard of living. I don't see it that way....I see only positive outcomes to be gained. Sure, a future like this will include change, but do it over two or three generations and its effects will be virtually imperceptible.

I can think of many rational arguments against the scenario you are laying out.  One of them is that you are suggesting that the government will somehow be able to manage such an epic project without special interests mucking up the process and compromising the initial objectives, even though that is what happens with virtually every such large government effort.

One of the primary impediments to getting people to join onto this movement is that there isn't necessarily anyone that stands to make a large profit off of it, and therefore this message isn't being bombarded down upon people since they are old enough to watch television. I often wonder for example what would happen to people's diets if all the commercials showed a bunch of attractive, cool people laughing and having a great time while eating plates full of apples and carrots rather than Big-Macs and Coca-Cola? What about if instead of watching hundreds of car commercials everyday with people unrealistically zipping through mountain roads delightfully unencumbered by the realities of gridlock traffic or speed limits, they could watch hundreds of commercials for skateboards, bicycles, or walking shoes being throughly enjoyed by people happily moving about their communities free from the stresses of fighting traffic, driving around in circles for parking spaces, or shelling out hundreds of dollars for gasoline?

It sounds like what you are saying is that you would like others to be as enlightened as you.  But what if what you see as enlightenment other people would see as someone telling them how they should be living?  Just because a lifestyle is tacky or lowbrow doesn't mean that the people living it want to stop.  Remember Thoreau's quote about marching to the beat of a different drummer?

Today's society and the decisions that people take are not a natural result of "who they are", they are carefully constructed by profit hungry mega-corporations who tell them 24 hours a day who "they should be". Corporations tell us what our clothes should look like, what our houses should look like, what our transportation should look like, what food we should desire to eat, etc. etc. etc. Many people choose not to question what their corporate overlords tell them.....but, for those that step back and question, they see the possibility to create an alternative healthier and more fulfilling future for ourselves.

Many people don't want to think about these things.  They like the security of the world around them.  They like their routines.  They simply don't have the capacity to conceptualize the kind of change you are describing.

Check out rush-hour in Copenhagen. This is intelligent design: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVz_FZ6ziJk

Doesn't that just reflect the preferences of people who live in Copenhagen?

Coming to New-York: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9Zcs5mE0Ww

Doesn't that just reflect the preferences of people who live in New York? 

Lots of people who used to live in New York decided they didn't like it and they now live other places.  Texas is full of companies that used to be based in New York but decided that Texas would be a better place for their headquarters and they moved.

MediumTex wrote:

stone wrote: When you consider just how much solar energy falls on the surface of the earth it seems ludicrous to me to say that we are dependent on fossil fuels.

Fossil fuels are really just the intensely concentrated energy from sunlight that fell on the earth millions of years ago.

We like using it more than energy from current sunlight because it is vastly more compact, versatile and cheap compared to harvesting the sunlight that is currently falling on the earth.

Again cheap in terms of not requiring manpower that is currently unemployed.

stone wrote:

MediumTex wrote:

stone wrote: When you consider just how much solar energy falls on the surface of the earth it seems ludicrous to me to say that we are dependent on fossil fuels.

Fossil fuels are really just the intensely concentrated energy from sunlight that fell on the earth millions of years ago.

We like using it more than energy from current sunlight because it is vastly more compact, versatile and cheap compared to harvesting the sunlight that is currently falling on the earth.

Again cheap in terms of not requiring manpower that is currently unemployed.

I think there is a little more to it than that.

No matter how much I might want it to, my car will never run on unemployed people.  I suppose they could push it, but it wouldn't go nearly as fast as I need it to.

MT,

People have been convinced that they “want”? a high consumption lifestyle by outside forces  because of the simple fact that this is the lifestyle that results in the most amount of corporate profits.  Our present lifestyle is not an organic expression of who we are as humans, but rather a fabricated reality hatched up by corporate America and woven into a model of “planned obsolescence”?.

What you are implying in your counterargument is that people are making free decisions to live the way that they are living. I am saying that this blindly overlooks the power of “nurture”? over “nature”?. People are nurtured by the capitalist system to view the world and their relation to it in a very specific way. They have been carefully nurtured to be consumers.  So, when they go out and consume, consume, consume…it isn’t because that is their “nature”?, but rather the result of years of careful mind control driven by the power of our present economic model.  

You are right that the majority of sheeple don’t have the inclination to think about these things. They are happy being part of the Matrix. However, those people in power or those who have the ability to influence the affairs of the world need to begin to consider how the system we have created is set up to devour itself in the long term. There are many small tweaks however that can be made over the course of generations that will have limited impact on people’s everyday life but will help ensure the survival of our species. This is what differentiates us from locusts....

No matter how much I might want it to, my car will never run on unemployed people.  I suppose they could push it, but it wouldn't go nearly as fast as I need it to.

Have you considered the idea that if your community was intelligently designed at a human scale, you wouldn't even need a car to begin with?

You are being forced into making decisions based on the environment that has been constructed around you. Redesign the environment and the natural decisions which flow from it will change.

doodle wrote:

No matter how much I might want it to, my car will never run on unemployed people.  I suppose they could push it, but it wouldn't go nearly as fast as I need it to.

Have you considered the idea that if your community was intelligently designed at a human scale, you wouldn't even need a car to begin with?

You are being forced into making decisions based on the environment that has been constructed around you. Redesign the environment and the natural decisions which flow from it will change.

The problem is that what you are describing reflects a level of enlightenment that I'm not sure large groups of humans are capable of expressing in their designs.

It sounds like we need to first make humans more enligtened, and then train some of them to be engineers and architects.  That's a tall order.