Quote from: John MorrowWe do have ways other than hydrocarbons to fuel our societies but there is always a complaint about any alternative energy technology whenever it actually gets implemented.

Of course. But here's where we come to the point that even if burning the sooty black stuff gives us Vitamin fucking C, still there's a finite amount of it, at some point demand will exceed supply by a large amount, so that from our perspective it's running short, and then...

As we pass the halfway-mark in pumping oil from the ground, the rate of production will drop. Since demand keeps rising thanks to industrialising countries, well... demand will exceed supply, and it'll be harder and harder to justify burning the stuff just to drive four blocks to the shops (here Down Under, 40% of all trips are under 5km), and harder and harder to afford driving much further, or to have the airconditioning set at chill temperatures while you're out all day.

As oil runs short and becomes more expensive, those alternatives are going to start looking much more palatable to people. Even a Jew will eat pork if it's that or starve, and even an American or Australian will take the train if that's the only way to get to work.

The other possibility is that as the stuff runs short and the price goes up, only the rich will drive or have oil-dependent products, while the poor have none at all; the rich-poor gap is already an oil gap. So our cities will become smoggy wastelands of shanty towns and gated communities of the rich. This is quite possible, but I prefer to be optimistic, and assume that people do in fact do the right thing once all alternatives have been exhausted.

Quote from: jeff37923As an aside, it should be noted that NASCAR qualified vehicles all burn alcohol in racing events. There is no gasoline in gasoline alley anymore.

what kind of mileage do they get on that fuel?  i've wondered that, and the same for jet engines vs. prop engines (avgas efficiency).

Well, Looks like they didn't like my "Big purple Toilet" comment over there, calling all the people that were picking on Koltar jackasses probably didn't hel either.

Either way I have a three day vacation.

That's such a hilarious application of the group attack rule, it's basically an Orwellian way of saying that criticism of the authorities will not be tolerated.

Quote from: McrowWell, Looks like they didn't like my "Big purple Toilet" comment over there, calling all the people that were picking on Koltar jackasses probably didn't hel either.

Either way I have a three day vacation.

 Thanks man!,

 I was browsing from an unregistered computer - and I couldn't follow their link to see why you got smacked.

 Anyone able to cut and paste the text?

 Mainly I'm just curious.


- ed C.

Quote from: walkerpThat's such a hilarious application of the group attack rule, it's basically an Orwellian way of saying that criticism of the authorities will not be tolerated.

Yeah, the email they sent me said that I made a group attack against all  RPG.net users when infact I was just insulting the mods and they few dickheads in that thread. No big loss for me, I'm going to continue to point out jackasses when I see them.

Quote from: KoltarI was browsing from an unregistered computer - and I couldn't follow their link to see why you got smacked.

 Anyone able to cut and paste the text?

 Mainly I'm just curious.

It's like dogs humping in the street, man.  Just try to not watch.

!i!

Quote from: KoltarThanks man!,

 I was browsing from an unregistered computer - and I couldn't follow their link to see why you got smacked.

 Anyone able to cut and paste the text?

 Mainly I'm just curious.


- ed C.

Nina said:

QuoteIf that's your opinion of this board, then surely you won't mind your three-day mandatory vacation for attacking its users.

in response to me saying:

QuoteWell, if nothing else at this thread is proof that you can still be shouted down by a bunch of know-it-all jackasses here on the big purple toilet.

Quote from: walkerpThat's such a hilarious application of the group attack rule, it's basically an Orwellian way of saying that criticism of the authorities will not be tolerated.

Yup - if you're on the wrong side, don't you DARE speak up, and especially don't try to defend yourself or your point of view, or *smack*.

mcrow didn't defend himself or anyone else, he just abused them all.

Abuse isn't a defence, it's just abuse. It may be deserved abuse, but it's still nothing more than abuse.

For example,

Uncle Ronny: "You only think you're having fun when gaming this way, really you're brain-damaged by your bad gaming experiences and can't tell what fun really is."
Kyle: "You're a cocksmock."

That's abuse, not defence.

Uncle Ronny: "You only think you're having fun when gaming this way, really you're brain-damaged by your bad gaming experiences and can't tell what fun really is."
Kyle: "If our experiences make us unable to perceive what is and isn't true, then for all you know you may also be brain-damaged, and so your own descriptions of your games being fun may also be wrong."

That's a defence, and is no way abusive.

Abuse will on rpg.net score you a ban. They certainly have pet posters they love or hate, so that exactly how abusive you can be and get away with it varies a lot, but basically if you abuse enough people eventually you'll be banned.

If you just defend and argue as above, then of course you may earn some mod's hatred, and then they'll look for an excuse to ban you later.

mcrow abused them. Of course they banned him. I think you have to realise that even in some tyrannical state, some people are justly imprisoned. Even Stalin's Russia had common thieves and murderers who justly went to prison; most people who went to prison did not deserve it, but a few did. Likewise, even on a message board with partial and deliebrately inconsistent moderation, sometimes they have a well-known rule, someone deliberately breaks it, and thus cops a ban; most people banned from rpg.net didn't deserve it, but a few were just asking for it. Say, by abusing people or threatening the mods with legal action.

Since Koltar doesn't seem to really want to start a new thread on this...

Quote from: BalbinusYou're a touch out of date on biofuels, current thinking is they are an environmental disaster, that the push for them may be worsening climate change and that it is also causing severe loss of biodiversity in some parts of the world and is also leading to a situation where the poor are finding their food production converted into fuel for other countries.

Converting crops into biofuel is not the only way to create it.  The Thermal Depolymerization (TDP) process that I posted links about earlier converts things like agricultural waste and sewage into oil.  Yes, they've hit some snags but none of them are show-stoppers.  And until recently, they weren't getting biofuel subsidies like ethanol because the ethanol subsidies are really farm subsidies.

Quote from: BalbinusThe only people denying the phenomenon and it's human causes are those who for some bizarre reason think it is a party political issue, which it really isn't.

Not really.  A lot of people denying the phenomenon often simply have a different perspective.  I've taken a college-level climatology class (a lesson from the first class - there is no such thing as a normal climate), have looked at paleo-climatology, have relatives who talked about major weather events from the early 20th Century, and so on.  Simply put, climate has been changing for as long as the Earth has had a climate, with or without the intervention of human beings.  And the reason why it plays out as a political issue is the same reason why so many do, which I think is pretty well explained by Thomas Sowell in his book A Conflict of Visions.

Quote from: BalbinusAnyway, fuck it, I deal with senior analysts at major investment banks who spend their time looking very closely at weather patterns and agricultural yields, the data is extremely clear, the international reports tend to downplay the scientific consensus as a result of Chinese and US political pressure.

And what does that data clearly say?

Quote from: BalbinusPersonally I think there is little realistic chance of our addressing the issue, as the current US administration has basically torpedoed international cooperation on the point.

The "current US administration" is irrelevant to the problem.  Do your really think that the US Senate, regardless of which administration is in power, would ratify a treaty that would hurt the US economy?  Are any of the Western nations that signed on to Kyoto actually meeting the goals set by that treaty?  And is there any chance of anyone meeting the goals of a treaty with more ambitions objectives than Kyoto, which is what's actually needed to make any difference?

Quote from: BalbinusBut fuck it, trying to convince people like Koltar is a waste of time, because he'd rather rely on folk wisdom and political partisan crap than science.  Me, I'm sticking with the science, which is now overwhelmingly supportive of climate change as being a human driven phenomenon.

Really?  So what caused the Medieval Climate Optimum?  How about the Little Ice Age?  How about the Holocene Climate Optimum?  How about the Younger Dryas?  And why were these periods when it was warmer than it is today called "Climate Optima"?  All human driven?  Do you really believe that climate didn't change before humans?

Quote from: BalbinusBut then, the US is a country where the teaching of evolution is under threat and which has some of the worst and most partisan broadcast news I have seen anywhere in the world, you guys really need to fight against the wave of superstition that I think is doing terrible damage to your country.

Do you really believe that the teaching of Evolution is under threat in New York City or Los Angeles?  I don't.  Free clue.  Education policy is set at the state and local level in the United States.  That the Kansas Board of Education decided they wanted to teach Intelligent Design (they didn't try to stop teaching Evolution) has no impact on what goes on in other parts of the United States.  In fact, even the people of Kansas were not terribly supportive of that decision.  Since you believe the media in the US is so biased, perhaps you should stop believing everything they say.

As for the most partisan broadcast news, perhaps part of the problem is that you don't notice the partisanship in your own news, ignore the local partisan news that you don't agree with, and are forgetting the vast portions of the world's population that don't live in places with a free press.  There are, of course, global warming skeptics outside of the United States.  There is a wonderful page addressing the reasons for global warming skepticism, for example, from the Telegraph in the UK here with backing data here and follow-up addressing critics here.    There is the Australian ABC documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle (you can find copies of it, and a debate about it, online).  And then there is Dane Bjørn Lomborg's take on the issue in "Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming".  But only Americans the US has partisan media that would make such claims, right?  And, of course, Michael Crichton (here is his take) and Larry Niven (see the ending of Fallen Angels) are hardly superstitious Creationists, yet both have expressed skepticism about global warming or the orthodox environmentalist interpretation of it.

Should I assume that you assess the scientific data on global warming with the same level of partisanship and lack of attention to detail with which you are making those claims?

Ultimately, the problem is that the atmosphere (as does much of the global environment) suffers from the curse of the commons, and so long as it's advantageous for someone to exploit the environment and get away with it, they will.  Again, I point out that even those countries who have signed on to even a the relatively mild Kyoto agreement have not and probably could not meet the goals, despite all of the noises they've made in support of it.

Oh, I forgot to point out that the poles on Mars are melting, too.  Seems like there is global warming on Mars.  I guess America shouldn't have sent those two solar-powered SUVs there, huh?

Quote from: Kyle AaronOf course. But here's where we come to the point that even if burning the sooty black stuff gives us Vitamin fucking C, still there's a finite amount of it, at some point demand will exceed supply by a large amount, so that from our perspective it's running short, and then...

...then the more expensive alternatives become viable and people will start using them.  It's not going to happen before that.

Quote from: Kyle AaronAs we pass the halfway-mark in pumping oil from the ground, the rate of production will drop. Since demand keeps rising thanks to industrialising countries, well... demand will exceed supply, and it'll be harder and harder to justify burning the stuff just to drive four blocks to the shops (here Down Under, 40% of all trips are under 5km), and harder and harder to afford driving much further, or to have the airconditioning set at chill temperatures while you're out all day.

The problem is that American (and I suspect Australian) suburbs are designed for cars and driving.  It's going to require a major shift in habitation patterns to change that.  I suspect it's more likely that we'll see smaller and/or more fuel-efficient cars first.

Quote from: Kyle AaronAs oil runs short and becomes more expensive, those alternatives are going to start looking much more palatable to people. Even a Jew will eat pork if it's that or starve, and even an American or Australian will take the train if that's the only way to get to work.

Yes, but before things get to that point, alternative fuels may become economically viable.  Yeah, $80 a barrel looks mighty expensive when oil is running $40 a barrel, but it looks pretty cheap when oil is running $100 a barrel.

Quote from: Kyle AaronThe other possibility is that as the stuff runs short and the price goes up, only the rich will drive or have oil-dependent products, while the poor have none at all; the rich-poor gap is already an oil gap. So our cities will become smoggy wastelands of shanty towns and gated communities of the rich. This is quite possible, but I prefer to be optimistic, and assume that people do in fact do the right thing once all alternatives have been exhausted.

Well, one of the big problems is that the developing world wants to keep developing.  They don't want to keep living in grass huts.  They want to own a car, a house with a bit of land around it, and be able to drive a car 5km to the store, just like Americans and Australians do.

Quote from: John MorrowWell, one of the big problems is that the developing world wants to keep developing.  They don't want to keep living in grass huts.  They want to own a car, a house with a bit of land around it, and be able to drive a car 5km to the store, just like Americans and Australians do.

and there is the crux of the problem.  we won't stop consuming, and others watch to consume as much as we do.

Quote from: BalbinusThe water is the key bit, currently the 21st century looks like it could be the century of the drought, though the thing with climate change (and it's climate change people, not global warming, that latter term is deeply misleading) is that it is fairly chaotic and we can expect a variety of extremes to get more so - more droughts, more floods (not generally at the same time naturally), more hurricanes and so on.

But the climate has been fairly chaotic all along.  The Dust Bowl happened less than 100 years ago, and that caused my aunt's family to migrate to California from Oklahoma.  My father has told me about 1944 Great Atlantic Hurricane that wiped out boardwalks and vacation homes all along the New Jersey coast.  A few hundred years ago, the Hudson River between New York and New Jersey as well as the Thames river would freeze solid in the winter.  

Of course the Little Ice Age corresponded to the Maunder Minimum, a period of low solar activity, not carbon dioxide decreases.  In fact, the graph of solar activity in the Wikipedia article on The Little Ice Age is worth a look.

Quote from: beeberand there is the crux of the problem.  we won't stop consuming, and others watch to consume as much as we do.

And the only way it's going to stop is to run out of it or for it to become too expensive to consume.  Personally, I'm betting on the development of cost-effective alternatives.  

Personally, I'm worried about a pole flip than global warming.  If we lose our magnetic field for even a few years, it will make a real mess out of everything.