Climate activist Tim DeChristopher is set to be released from prison on Earth Day, this Sunday April 21st, since being incarcerated on July 26, 2011.
Tim DeChristopher created quite a ripple in the activist community when he tried to buy millions of dollars of land in December of 2008 in order to stop the oil and gas industry from snatching it up at an illegitimate...
Air Force to Make the "Wild, Blue Yonder" a Little Less Wild
Air Force to Make the "Wild, Blue Yonder" a Little Less Wild
The world's most powerful air force is seeking to wean itself from foreign oil and nearly zero out its carbon dioxide output as part of a sweeping alternative energy drive, a senior Pentagon official said on Friday.
By early 2011, the U.S. Air Force aims to make sure its entire fleet of bombers, fighters, transports and other aircraft can use a domestically produced 50-50 blend of synthetic and petroleum-based fuel.
- Ross Gelbspan's blog
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checked the calendar
I found this so surprising that I had to check to make sure that it wasn't April 1.
Commercial planes
And if the best of the best in fighter jets can do this -- the commercial airline industry would seem to be even easier to convert to renewable fuel sources (I think).
keep dreaming
Military aircraft have one distinct advantage over commercial aircraft -- they run on a virtually unlimited supply of taxpayer money. Payment mandatory and non-negotiable. Commercial airlines, however, must depend on voluntary payment for their services.
A commercial airline might decide to run their fleet on biodiesel, champagne, or the tears of Third World children for all I care. Like any consumer, I'll vote with my dollars for whoever sticks it to me the least. In that point of view, I'm with the majority.
An argument for gov't regulation
Yuck! I hate it when literate people say such things. "The right course of action is the one that can save me a greasy buck regardless of its effect on others." What kind of ethics is that? If that is indeed the majority viewpoint then you have just made an argument for top-down control. I like to think that, given the relevant information regarding 'externalities', most people would take things other than price into consideration. I like to think that most people are not like Rob.
Who says I'm literate?
""The right course of action is the one that can save me a greasy buck regardless of its effect on others." What kind of ethics is that?"
It is the same ethics which saves me from trading the family cow for a sack of magic beans.
And I don't share your snobbish disdain for money. Although, in your case, it seems to be a disdain for other people's money. Your position is facile.
Since you claim a hypothetical "effect on others", then it's your job to prove it, before you go picking everyone's pockets on the basis of that claim. Fewer and fewer people are buying into it, especially now that it is dawning on most people what your utopia actually entails.
The fact is, the hysterical attempts at raising a false alarm are increasingly falling on deaf ears. The flaws in your argument are becoming manifest.
http://mobile2.wsj.com/beta2/htmlsite/html_article.php?id=1&CALL_URL=http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119387567378878423.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries
I'm sure John Christy's name will shortly appear in Desmog Inquisition's "Denier Database".
"If that is indeed the majority viewpoint then you have just made an argument for top-down control."
Nonsense. Whether you care to acknowledge it or not, this is your argument. I'm merely calling attention to that fact.
Your argument is the same old collectivist argument, dressed up in green instead of red. "It's for the common good! Now hand over your rights and cash."
And, yes, that is indeed the majority viewpoint.
drowning in crap
"job to prove" -- when you can relate this to how science works then I will think about the rest of your garbage. If you've ever read my comments with an open mind, you would know that I'm not who you seem to think I am, but rather someone who believes in user-pay.
User Pay?
Pay for what?
Resources
Pay for resources. Read up on private property and the tragedy of the commons and how economists would like to improve the utility of the market to incorporate externalities. Chirp, chirp.
Ahhh, now I get it.
All this time, we've been getting oil and gas for free!
"Prove" it.
Consider that sometimes the operational price doesn't include the true costs. That's a market inefficiency, and it's a real phenomenon. Don't worry, I don't really expect you to get anything anymore, never mind demonstrating that you get it.
On a related note, in just random reading I'm coming across quite a lot of results that contradict your claim of majority regarding your approach to consumption -- lots of folks do not look solely at price, much to my relief. Perhaps you can cite studies indicating that most people are like you? The last time you provided a link to something I ended up reading an op-ed by Christie in the Wall Street Journal -- not a big deal except for the fact that you provided that link in support of your statement that my worldview was being exposed as flawed. Needless to say, that was unconvincing. Can you do better supporting any of your assertions?
oh, brother ...
"Consider that sometimes the operational price doesn't include the true costs. That's a market inefficiency, and it's a real phenomenon."
Heh, I think you'll find that the market prices for oil and gas actually do include the true costs. Otherwise, everyone from Exxon to Suncor would have been out of business a long time ago, and I would have stopped recieving dividend cheques.
"Don't worry, I don't really expect you to get anything anymore, never mind demonstrating that you get it."
My gracious, you certainly are arrogant and smug for someone who obviously doesn't have clue one as to what they're babbling about. Amusing and oddly predictable.
What you are clumsily alluding to are what economists call "externalities". Unless you can quantify and prove the existence of of such externalities, they remain entirely hypothetical. Your mere claim that they exist isn't going to get anyone to write you a cheque.
Unlike your zany idea of modern science, economics still utilizes good old fashioned proof.
"On a related note, in just random reading I'm coming across quite a lot of results that contradict your claim of majority regarding your approach to consumption -- lots of folks do not look solely at price, much to my relief. Perhaps you can cite studies indicating that most people are like you?"
Simple -- how many people do you see volunteering to pay extra for gasoline (to presumably soothe their concience about raping Gaia)?
Zero. That's how many.
Like you, most people's "concern" for the environment is a mile wide and an inch deep. When it comes to putting their money where their mouths are, we see how genuine their "concern" is. Not genuine at all. And who can blame them?
ignorance blossoming
Oh Rob, I'm glad you actually strung together a couple of thoughts here -- it's much easier to give you potentially helpful responses. You say that I'm clumsily alluding to externalities. Look a couple of posts above where I tell you explicitly that I'm talking about externalities. I know you objected to me saying that you are literate; maybe you're trying to 'prove' that you are not?
My energy stocks have done just fine, but that's not very relevant to whether or not the true costs are accounted for in the price. Your attempt to argue that it is suggests to me that you haven't quite got the meaning of "externalities". Here are some links for you:
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicles/fuel_economy/subsidizing-big-oil.html
http://ec.europa.eu/research/headlines/news/article_05_10_21_en.html
http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=11520
http://www.getreallist.com/article.php?story=20070629145550778
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/econoblog08032005.htm
You'll probably only like the last one, it being to the Wall Street Journal. Scroll down to about the middle to see where people more knowledgeable than you on the topic disagree with you. (BTW, externalities are hard to quantify which is why they often remain external; it does not mean they don't exist.) You're welcome. How come you never provide helpful information like this, even when you are asked? I did ask you to support your assertions.
You know very little regarding my commitment to the environment -- insults like yours usually indicate some kind of insecurity. But I don't think insecurity can justify your hypocrisy regarding arrogance. You seem even more arrogant, and willfully ignorant to me than someone called EH (used to post comments here), who also had a reading comprehension problem like you. Trying to support your assertions with the work of others will help you -- by reading you can actually learn and then write things that are useful to others. You can search desmogblog to find the story about Costco or Walmart (I can't remember which) asking folks if they would like to pay a voluntary environmental fee. People did it. The first chapter of Freakonomics has several examples. There are more. Can you find a study that says people won't pay more? No, all you'll be able to find is that people won't pay much more. Given there's little indication that the extra money would go toward reducing pollution, I don't blame them.
That's all for now Rob. Oh, except for one more inaccuracy in your post -- it's not "my" zany concept of modern science. Read up on it, really (try wikipedia, say), and read up on what you call proof in economics. If you find something that describes it well please provide a link.
Answer as expected: (sound of crickets chirping)
Further to your last comment, you raise another good point:
""job to prove" -- when you can relate this to how science works then I will think about the rest of your garbage."
Indeed, Steve L. What possible use could science have for so-called "proof"? That's so old-fashioned. In our post-modernist world, computer models and "consensus" have done away with archaic concepts like "proof".
Pfft! "Proof" ... what a dead white Eurocentric male idea! Good riddance to that, eh?
Answer as expected: (sound of crickets chirping)
Further to your last comment, you raise another good point:
""job to prove" -- when you can relate this to how science works then I will think about the rest of your garbage."
Indeed, Steve L. What possible use could science have for so-called "proof"? That's so old-fashioned. In our post-modernist world, computer models and "consensus" have done away with archaic concepts like "proof".
Pfft! "Proof" ... what a dead white Eurocentric male idea! Good riddance to that, eh?
Are you through?
Sorry Rob, I've got a life. I'm also a working scientist. The natural sciences don't work on "proof". Read up on Karl Popper -- a white European who influenced the scientific method a lot. I don't think your questions are sincere, so don't be surprised if you don't get comprehensive answers. You'd rather snipe than engage in constructive discourse, it seems, so I doubt you'll care.
50% of scientists graduate at the bottom half of the class
" I'm also a working scientist. The natural sciences don't work on "proof". "
LOL! This is a keeper!
LOL?
Funny because it's true, I guess. I hope you do keep it because you need all the factual content you can get.
if interested
Here's a somewhat related article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barry-sanders/ the-green-zone-the-milit_b_70285.html (removes the space after -sanders/)
This fella is talking about pollution generated in making war.