Re: Energy article from BBC news

But Vernon cited that passage against us heretical old earthers!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Schneider" <rjschn39@bellsouth.net>
To: "Al Koop" <koopa@gvsu.edu>; <williamehamiltonjr@yahoo.com>
Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2004 4:29 PM
Subject: Re: Energy article from BBC news

> Heinberg's scenario of the way corporations and their complicit media tell
> the public only good news reminds me of the kings of ancient Israel/Judah
> whose court prophets gave them the good news that God is on their side,
> while truth-telling prophets were told to shut up or thrown in holes. Was
> it ever thus as disaster grows and looms?
>
> Bob
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Al Koop" <koopa@gvsu.edu>
> To: <williamehamiltonjr@yahoo.com>
> Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2004 10:52 AM
> Subject: Re: Energy article from BBC news
>
>
> > Bill Hamilton <williamehamiltonjr@yahoo.com> 07/28/04 8:47 AM wrote:
> >
> > This articleappeared in BBC news yesterday.
> >
> > http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3930245.stm
> >
> > Interesting that the country that hit on the "bonanza" of North Sea oil
> > a few
> > years ago is now looking to ways to burn coal and contemplating more
> > nuclear.
> > Clearly North Sea oil is running out. It's also interesting that with
> > its huge
> > reserves, Russia is planning to ramp up nuclear.
> >
> > AK: One of the central issues in energy extraction is that the costs of
> > coal, nuclear, wind, solar, biomass, etc will all rise as the price of
> > oil and natural gas rises. The machines that mine the coal and the
> > trains that transport it will cost more to run. The cost of extracting
> > and processing uranium and the cost of building the nuclear plant itself
> > will also rise. Solar panels will cost more to build, windmills will
> > cost more to construct. And the infrastructure to support these
> > alternatives will cost more than they would if manufactured with cheap
> > oil today. The question that no one seems to have a good grasp on is:
> > To what price level will these alternatives to oil and gas rise as oil
> > and gas prices go up. This has some of the characteristics of a dog
> > chasing her tail and concerns most of those who recognize the situation.
> >
> > So the question becomes: What can be done. With that in mind Richard
> > Heinberg, author of The Party's Over has written Powerdown: Options and
> > Actions for a Post Carbon-World, which is available soon at Amazon.
> > Heinberg posted the introduction of this book at
> >
> > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/energyresources/message/60562
> >
> > I found his writing rather engaging and well worth reading.
> >
> >
> > A couple of excerpts:
> >
> > Everyone knows the classic scene from a dozen Westerns: a self-reliant,
> > grizzled old geezer is taken to see a doctor, perhaps for the first time
> > in
> > his life. He knows the prognosis intuitively and is prepared for the
> > worst.
> > "Tell me the truth, Doc."
> >
> > That's how some of us feel when we read about climate change or the
> > ongoing
> > degradation of the world's coral reefs. Give it to me straight: I'd
> > rather
> > know than live in denial.
> >
> > But most of the leaders of government and industry feel differently.
> > They
> > are more like the character Colonel Jessup, played by Jack Nicholson, in
> > A
> > Few Good Men (1992). In that film's climactic courtroom scene,
> > Lieutenant
> > Kaffee (Tom Cruise), cross-examining Jessup, insists, "I want the
> > truth."
> > Jessup shouts back, "You can't handle the truth!"
> >
> > Nor, it seems, can we - at least in the estimation of the masters of the
> > corporate media. And so we tend to receive only sanitized versions of
> > the
> > news about our world. Occasionally, disturbing information does appear
> > on
> > television or in the newspapers, but the offending story usually shows
> > up
> > buried in the same broadcast, or on the same page, as others about
> > relatively ephemeral political developments, local murders, the lives of
> > entertainment stars, or scores in sports games.
> >
> >
> > and
> >
> > We get plenty of help in this regard from the relentlessly cheery
> > entertainment industry, but also from politicians of every stripe.
> > Trying to
> > tell the public truly awful news is considered impolite - unless it is
> > news
> > about something that can be blamed on an opposing political group or
> > some
> > foreign enemy. While leftists sometimes highlight certain ecological
> > crises
> > as a way of blaming corporations and right-wing governments, they often
> > make
> > sure to frame their complaints in a way that suggests that the problems
> > can
> > be solved by implementing a plan being put forward by liberal
> > politicians or
> > NGOs. Meanwhile, commentators on the political right revile
> > "environmental
> > alarmists" for allegedly exaggerating the seriousness of ecological
> > dilemmas
> > to suit ideological purposes.
> >
> > So, as the leftists make skewed and half-hearted attempts to discuss
> > ecological crises, the attacks from the right have their intended
> > chilling
> > effect. Mainstream environmentalists these days often tend reflexively
> > to
> > pull their punches and temper their warnings. There are serious problems
> > facing us, they say again and again, but if we just make the right
> > choices
> > those problems will painlessly vanish. When they are at their most
> > baleful,
> > environmental scientists tell us that we have the current decade in
> > which to
> > make fundamental changes; if we don't, then the slide into ecological
> > collapse will be irreversible. On the first Earth Day we were told we
> > had
> > the decade of the 1970s in which to change course; but for the most part
> > we
> > didn't. Then we had the '80s . . . ditto. During the 1992 Earth Summit
> > in
> > Rio we heard that humanity had the '90s to reform itself; after that,
> > there
> > might be no turning back. There was still no fundamental change in
> > direction, and here we are a dozen years on. I expect any day now to
> > read an
> > official pronouncement to the effect that we have the remainder of the
> > first
> > decade of the new century in which to make changes, or else. How many
> > warnings do we get? Isn't it reasonable by now to assume that we are
> > living
> > on borrowed time?
> >
> >
> > Read the rest at the above URL.
> >
> > Al Koop
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
Received on Thu Jul 29 13:11:39 2004