when the humans leading them act like sociopaths, I condemn them. And that is just about the CEO job description. Time to stop the oil subsidies and make them pay to clean up their mess. ALL of it.

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Janice

when the humans leading them act like sociopaths, I condemn them. And that is just about the CEO job description. Time to stop the oil subsidies and make them pay to clean up their mess. ALL of it.

The bad behavior is not confined to CEOs of fossil-fuel companies. It is EVERYONE's bad behavior (including me and you). All the people running the fossil-fuel companies did was fill a demand that everyone had. Cheap Energy to power our daily lives of thoughtless over-consumption, no matter what the bad effects. If there *IS* a 'mess', then everyone made it and everyone should have to pay to clean it up.

You condemn the greed on the 'oil executives' part, yet it is the greed on everyone's part that caused the problem. And your desire to avoid paying for your share of the mess (make THEM pay for it!) is just further greed on your part.

Oh wait... this is just more 'us vs. them', isn't it (just like your post I am replying to)?

<GRIN>

The CEO's job description is to spend as little as possible, and to make as much as possible. No matter what. Oh and to be held accountable for as little as possible(part of making as much as possible).

The difference is, most people care. There is no room for that in corporations as a whole. And oil companies are merely an example of capitalism gone wild.

Which is where legislation/laws/rules/accountability come in.

Edit: by saying make them pay for it, I am saying make their product economically unviable as it is environmentally unviable. This would mean higher costs for dirty energy, and lower(relative) costs for clean. We would save a lot of arguments about subsidies and the cost of one vs. another. It would also force them to give more than lip service to clean energy.

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Janice

...More like inspired war after war involving fossil fuel rich environments, in the name of "protecting our interests", buying up and burying hopeful technologies that would lessen our dependance, manipulating politics to favor cheap access(to them)...

War is the natural condition of the human species.

Mmmm... That sounds like an 'apologist' and 'fatalist'. Hence... We are all doomed! That's DOOMED he tells ya!

... Buying up and burying useful technologies... This is business. ...

More of the apologist!

Ofcourse the Oil Companies will want to keep their hegemony. Just like various, in my opinion, unwholesome and various very expensive practices perpetrated by Microsoft for their domination for software. Doesn't mean to say that we agree with that or that we will acquiesce and abandon our planet and our lives to them...


It's our only planet... Some of us would prefer not to trash it!
Especially not for someone else's profit!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

...More like inspired war after war involving fossil fuel rich environments, in the name of "protecting our interests", buying up and burying hopeful technologies that would lessen our dependance, manipulating politics to favor cheap access(to them)...

War is the natural condition of the human species.

Mmmm... That sounds like an 'apologist' and 'fatalist'. Hence... We are all doomed! That's DOOMED he tells ya!

Go ahead, Martin. Rant all you want.

I never said doomed. We are still here, after all, after thousands of years of recorded history, and untold thousands of years before that.

Look at history. At virtually any moment of it, it was war, war, and more war.

Look at the present day. War, war, and more war.

Even various people that say 'hey, let us be nice to each other' have war, war, and more war committed in their name.

Its not making an apology or being fatalistic to state what has been proven by events over and over and over. It is merely acknowledging reality.

If you wish to go stick your head in the sand, and believe some fairy tale that humanity is somehow 'better than that', go right ahead.

... Buying up and burying useful technologies... This is business. ...

More of the apologist!

Ofcourse the Oil Companies will want to keep their hegemony. Just like various, in my opinion, unwholesome and various very expensive practices perpetrated by Microsoft for their domination for software. Doesn't mean to say that we agree with that or that we will acquiesce and abandon our planet and our lives to them...

Again, the behavior of the oil companies is understandable (even you see that, per your statement). You don't have to do business with companies you find somehow 'wrong'. But, by the same token, there are those that do not find them anywhere near as objectionable as you seem to. Business is business. It also is a kind of war. Business will search for and use any advantage they can over the competition. Sometimes this is a good thing, keeping prices low. Sometimes, they cross the line and have to be spanked (like Standard Oil or AT&T were for being monopolies).

It's our only planet... Some of us would prefer not to trash it!
Especially not for someone else's profit!
Martin

Someone *else's* profit? Seems that you have profited yourself from the oil companies. If it wasn't to your profit, you wouldn't have bought anything from the oil companies. Bought any gasoline or diesel recently? Bought anything made of or packaged with plastics recently? Bought anything made with oil/gas/coal in any way, shape, form, or fashion recently? Bought anything transported by fossil-fueled transport recently? Bought any electricity recently?

'Oil Companies' are in the oil business because there is a demand for the oil. Part of the demand is yours. It is partly your fault that the oil companies are in the oil business. And you have profited from your consumption of the oil. If there are higher costs to be paid in regards to oil use, you are going to have to help pay them.

Why cast stones at me for only pointing this out? Who is really to blame for the 'oil mess'? We all need to go look in the mirror. That is who is to blame.

... Look at the present day. War, war, and more war.

War upon ourselves is to be expected. We've done far more of that than diplomacy!

However... War upon our own planet is very different. Like it or not, our present war of pollution is geo-engineering our planet into something very different, very quickly, for all of us.

... We all need to go look in the mirror. That is who is to blame.

All of us.

Why then do we acquiesce and allow so few do so much damage to us all? Lambs to the slaughter? All other life also??


It's our only planet,
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Lead, follow, or get out of the way keith.

The tired arguments of transfer of wealth pale in comparison to what fossil fuel companies have done to the economy, despite their grossly exagerated claims and conspiracy theories.

Oh, we're going to do that. We're going to get YOU little statists out of the way.

Wait until November 2012.

Lead, follow, or get out of the way keith.

The tired arguments of transfer of wealth pale in comparison to what fossil fuel companies have done to the economy, despite their grossly exagerated claims and conspiracy theories.

Oh, we're going to do that. We're going to get YOU little statists out of the way.

Wait until November 2012.

I'd rather wait until december 2012. so we wont have to deal with this anymore

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In a rich man's house there is no place to spit but his face.
Diogenes Of Sinope

Please start a business now and do it your way. Or, take over a business and do it your way.

You know, not like Corporations are doing it now.

You will be Praying to The Fossil Fuel GOD to help you survive.

Take it from a Worm. Worms have survived for Billions of Years.

We have seen lots of Fossils. And they be good.

Fuel it with Fossils.

iWorm 'em.

I've been watching this thread and it went where I thought it would go. To some place unrealistic...

Do away with fossil burning, and then what? The country will go dark. Seen a night-time satellite view of North-Korea lately?

Then what? Go back to an agrarian society? The population centers would fall into chaos. Some recent movies out of Hollywood would become reality. A large percentage of our population would die.

Rednecks would survive with hunting, fishing, and farming. And those who successfully escaped the city wouldn't survive long away from McDonalds, WalMarts, and air conditioning.

We don't have a choice but to keep burning fossils.

But don't worry, the current administration is doing everything it can to raise the price of energy, thus reducing demand.

This next summer is going to be interesting. Mark my word: when gas hits an all-time high this summer, the same people screaming about polluting the planet will be the ones screaming the loudest about how expensive gas is.

Guy, other countries ARE going fossil fuel free. And are going there by leaps and bounds.

Even Venezuela exports most if not all of their petroleum fuels.

And the USA can or will not do this because.... what is it they are smarter then us? more advanced then us? Or more likely they are just paying attention.

I believe Scandanavian countries are on the leading edge. We are kind of stuck sitting on thumbs, whining about how things WERE done.

---

Janice

I've been watching this thread and it went where I thought it would go. To some place unrealistic...

Do away with fossil burning, and then what? The country will go dark. Seen a night-time satellite view of North-Korea lately?

Then what? Go back to an agrarian society? The population centers would fall into chaos. Some recent movies out of Hollywood would become reality. A large percentage of our population would die.

Rednecks would survive with hunting, fishing, and farming. And those who successfully escaped the city wouldn't survive long away from McDonalds, WalMarts, and air conditioning.

We don't have a choice but to keep burning fossils.

But don't worry, the current administration is doing everything it can to raise the price of energy, thus reducing demand.

This next summer is going to be interesting. Mark my word: when gas hits an all-time high this summer, the same people screaming about polluting the planet will be the ones screaming the loudest about how expensive gas is.

Guy, other countries ARE going fossil fuel free. And are going there by leaps and bounds.

Even Venezuela exports most if not all of their petroleum fuels.

And the USA can or will not do this because.... what is it they are smarter then us? more advanced then us? Or more likely they are just paying attention.

I believe Scandanavian countries are on the leading edge. We are kind of stuck sitting on thumbs, whining about how things WERE done.

Both Guy and Soft^Spirit are correct, to a certain extent.

Guy is right when he says we don't really have a choice but to continue to burn fossil fuels... for now, that is. The scenario he states is exactly what would happen if we suddenly could no longer burn any fossil fuels at all (for whatever reason). Mass starvation, for instance. The USA's infrastructure depends on plentiful, cheap energy to function. Food is grown, for instance, primarily in some parts of the nation (which ones depend on the crop), if it is not imported, that is. The food must be hauled long distances to where most of the people are. This is primarily done with fossil-fuels. Perishable food is kept refrigerated or frozen. Again, fossil-fuel-generated electricity powers this to a great extent. Then the food must be cooked. Again, fossil-fuel-generated electricity. The average city in the USA has between 1 and 3 days worth of food available at any one time.

If we suddenly have to cut fossil-fuel use down to zero, within a few days mass starvation will set in. Probably less than 10% of the people in the USA are set up to be able to produce their own food. A few days after 90% of the people start starving, you can bet chaos will set in.

Now, we can minimize the hardship by SLOWLY ramping down fossil-fuel use as we ramp up alternative use. But even that won't be pain-free. Economic growth will suffer, since alternatives are not as cheap as fossil-fuels, causing higher unemployment, plus other economic effects as we have to re-organize our way of life to minimize energy use.

There is no real single replacement for fossil fuels. No magic bullet. While alternatives can help, things will never be as good as they were with fossil fuels.

So, in a VERY real sense, we have no choice.

As to Soft^Spirit's points...

Yes, some nations are transitioning to alternatives nicely. For the most part, they are the ones that never used much fossil-fuels to begin with. So they don't have decades of poor choices to deal with. They are trying to do things right, the first time.

Of course Venezuela exports most of its fossil-fuel resources. They are, after all, in that business, selling them to the rest of the world in exchange for some hard currency.

Its not that we can't stop using fossil-fuels now. It is that we do not wish to do so totally at this time. Would it really be worth 300,000,000 dead? We are taking it nice and slow, to avoid as much economic disruption and human misery of our own citizens as possible.

I can disagree strongly on a couple of points Kong.

Alternatives can and must replace fossil fuel use. A time frame to do so is reasonable, just as SUV's are disappearing from our roads as fuel prices rise CLOSER to what is fair(still a long way to go). The pacific northwest runs almost entirely on hydro-electric. Yes there are nuclear plants as well, but most of that energy is transported interstate to the less wet neighbors.
And the jobs created by implementing alternative energy will be massive. The only question is how many in the USA? And that is why we NEED to get behind it, push together and get the ball rolling. For this purpose I favor charging fossil fuel companies every dime possible to even begin to pay the fairshare
of damage already caused,and subsidizing clean, renewable energy as much as possible. For now.

As gasoline approaches a more reasonable $5+ per gallon, (how much is it in england right now?) the electric vehicles coming out look better and better.
Even Plug in hybrid would reduce massively the amount of oil required.

And while some are trying to put on the solar roof and put up the windmills,
others are in the basement digging out the foundation.

---

Janice

I can disagree strongly on a couple of points Kong.

Alternatives can and must replace fossil fuel use. A time frame to do so is reasonable, just as SUV's are disappearing from our roads as fuel prices rise CLOSER to what is fair(still a long way to go). The pacific northwest runs almost entirely on hydro-electric. Yes there are nuclear plants as well, but most of that energy is transported interstate to the less wet neighbors.
And the jobs created by implementing alternative energy will be massive. The only question is how many in the USA? And that is why we NEED to get behind it, push together and get the ball rolling. For this purpose I favor charging fossil fuel companies every dime possible to even begin to pay the fairshare
of damage already caused,and subsidizing clean, renewable energy as much as possible. For now.

As gasoline approaches a more reasonable $5+ per gallon, (how much is it in england right now?) the electric vehicles coming out look better and better.
Even Plug in hybrid would reduce massively the amount of oil required.

And while some are trying to put on the solar roof and put up the windmills,
others are in the basement digging out the foundation.

I don't disagree that alternatives can and will replace fossil-fuels.

Time frame? Well, there is one time frame imposed. Before the fossil-fuels run out. I presume you mean a shorter one. Well, there is so much to do, with uncertain time requirements. Whatever the time frame ends up being, it is likely to be decades, maybe a century. Do it much faster (on the order of years, or less), and there will be serious problems, as Guy mentioned.

Yes, people buy fewer SUVs when the gas prices go up, and return to buying them when gas prices fall again.

Yes, some areas have more non-fossil-fuel electric generation than others. But, nationwide, fossil fuels are still the lion's share of electric generation.

Jobs created in the USA? Not as many as you might think. Working people in the USA have, by and large, priced themselves out of manufacturing jobs. About all that are left are service jobs, manual labor jobs, and a few 'thinking' jobs. The well paying manufacturing jobs have, almost without exception, gone overseas. And much of the manual/unskilled labor jobs are being filled by immigrants who aren't adverse to a little hard work. Most of the manufacturing jobs involving alternative energy are going to be created in places like China.

'Charging fossil-fuel companies every dime possible'...

ROFLMAO

You can't charge the companies anything. Things don't work that way. The companies will just pass it along to the consumer. The companies / corporations never pay squat.

It seems that what you are wanting to do is to increase the price of fossil fuels in order to decrease demand. Simple. Just levy a tax on every barrel of oil extracted over here, and every barrel of oil imported. A nice, big, painful tax. People will quit buying so much of it. Simple supply & demand.

However, if you increase the cost of energy, you are going to slow down the economy. Slow it down too much and we are right back in recession/depression.

You mention a price of $5/gal for gasoline. Well, last time I checked, gasoline was around $8/gal in the UK. And that has been several years ago. However, their situation in the UK is different than it is here. Their economy might be able to tolerate $8/gal gasoline, but ours can't without severe economic stress. Lots of people out of work and starving. Our economy relies to a greater extent on cheap energy than does the economy of the UK.

Yes, we do need to transition off of fossil fuels onto alternatives. But it is going to be a slow process if we are to avoid much economic hardship.

We already have the economic hardship. Speeding it up will increase job creation, and would insure the country stays at the forefront in the world economy.

Broken record here, but wind is the absolute cheapest energy to add to the grid NOW. Solar is Not much more than oil fired now, of course businesses want a faster than 10-15 year pay off. This is why it is popular with home owners(building new) and not popular with utilities.

$8/gallon sounds reasonable to me. As does charging oil companies complete cleanup and damage (estimated, not necessarily proven) to environment caused, full value of leases and extracted minerals from federal lands/seas.

Will they pay it? probably not, considering how many politicians they lease.

---

Janice

We have said a lot of things here that are true and some that are questionable in this thread.

OUR ECONOMY WAS BUILT ON ABUNDANT AND CHEAP ENERGY. How do you think that we can get back to cheap energy in a reponsible way?

Things being discussed now, either by mandate or taxation will double the cost of energy and bring what's left of our economy to it's knees.

Where are the bold ideas that will bring cheap energy back to the fore /

Let's hear them !!

We already have the economic hardship.

Not due to an unholy spike in energy costs, such as what you propose.

Speeding it up will increase job creation,

Sure... in China...

and would insure the country stays at the forefront in the world economy.

That is a bygone era.

Broken record here, but wind is the absolute cheapest energy to add to the grid NOW. Solar is Not much more than oil fired now, of course businesses want a faster than 10-15 year pay off. This is why it is popular with home owners(building new) and not popular with utilities.

$8/gallon sounds reasonable to me. As does charging oil companies complete cleanup and damage (estimated, not necessarily proven) to environment caused, full value of leases and extracted minerals from federal lands/seas.

Will they pay it? probably not, considering how many politicians they lease.

I agree about the wind and solar.

Jacking up the Federal Gasoline Tax to bring the current price level up to $8/gal would cause much economic hardship. There would be great wailing and gnashing of teeth. For instance, do you want to pay somewhere on the high side of $10/loaf of bread (if, that is, you can even buy one)? Oh, and by the way, your income won't go up any, and will likely contract. My grandpa's pay got cut by 2/3rds when the Great Depression hit. But at least he still had a job. Many of his neighbors were not so lucky. More than a few starved to death. You want that here? Now? If you do, go ahead and jack up gasoline prices by taxing it..


And again... Charging oil companies these sorts of punative damages won't work. They will just pass the charges along to their customers, making a weak economy (due to the already $8/gal gasoline) even worse (as it goes to $15 or more per gallon).

About the only thing we (the USA) *can* do is take it slow. Gradually ramp up taxes on petroleum and other fossil fuels over a period of 20 to 50 years to decrease demand for oil and increase demand for alternatives. Any faster and you risk an *extended* bout of economic hardship the likes of which would make the great depression seem like a trip to the candy store.

We are in the process of a transition to alternatives. It just is going slowly, and needs to go slowly.

We have said a lot of things here that are true and some that are questionable in this thread.

OUR ECONOMY WAS BUILT ON ABUNDANT AND CHEAP ENERGY. How do you think that we can get back to cheap energy in a reponsible way?

Things being discussed now, either by mandate or taxation will double the cost of energy and bring what's left of our economy to it's knees.

Where are the bold ideas that will bring cheap energy back to the fore /

Let's hear them !!

We won't get back to cheap, abundant energy in the short to medium term. Over the long term, maybe fusion power might have a shot at cheap and abundant. IF the multitude of technical problems are worked out. Give it a century or so, then we will see.

The 'things being discussed now' are kinda-sorta a discussion over the best process to wean our economy off of cheap, abundant energy.

Not even fossil fuels are cheap anymore. They have nowhere near the abundance as once they did (thinking crude oil now, not so much on coal... there are many other problems with coal that make it not so cheap, even though it may still be relatively abundant).

We have said a lot of things here that are true and some that are questionable in this thread.

OUR ECONOMY WAS BUILT ON ABUNDANT AND CHEAP ENERGY. How do you think that we can get back to cheap energy in a reponsible way?

Things being discussed now, either by mandate or taxation will double the cost of energy and bring what's left of our economy to it's knees.

Where are the bold ideas that will bring cheap energy back to the fore /

Let's hear them !!

Read up, and read other threads. We have covered some in great detail.

---

Janice

we seem to agree on direction, but not on time frame. up at least a dollar per year on gasoline until we "get over it" is more to my view.

Edit: and we are certainly not dependant on China for clean energy.

neither GE nor Vestas are in China (two of the largest wind turbine manufacturers). Solar is made here, Phillipines, Malasia, Germany, oh yes, and some in China.. to name a few.

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Janice