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How the is Science to blame?
One final thing - this oil fiasco is not a failure of science, it is a failure of (in no particular order):
1. economics - which has encouraged us to over-exploit our non-renewable natural resources and thus quickly pushed us towards increasingly riskier mining, particularly of oil, and towards a point where oil will soon be scarce. That will be the first true tipping point for global civilisation, and it is looming sooner than you think. Meanwhile, we have disasterous oil spills like this because economics, and in particular its complete ignorance of externalities such as pollution and depletion, has locked oil and other fossil fuels into the key economic position around which everything gravitates. Break that nexus and you change the world.
2. engineering - since offshore drilling is not new, this has to be a failure of design, construction or materials... whichever it is, it has nothing to do with science (the discovery of new, universal, verifiable knowledge) and everything to do with poor engineering practices, probably as a result of cost cutting (see 1.) and lack of proper oversight (see 3.).
3. government - the government's job as regulator is to be vigilant on industry in order to maintain quality and safety standards and protect the public... this is a miserable regulatory failure.
4. politics - corporations now control national governments and use their influence to privatise and deregulate at every opportunity - the result is this and disasters like it, which are happening all the time. Voters are to blame for buying into bull binary politics rather than breaking down the Old Guard, and governments are to blame because they have been emasculated by ins utional corruption (bought by the lobbies) and thus act to stiffle change for the better.
5. ALL OF US - oil is embedded in everything we buy; food, transport, plastics, chemicals, electronics, anything transported to us, etc., so we are ALL complicit in this oil slick because our livestyles drive this insane demand for fossil fuels. Want fewer environmental disasters of all kinds, use less oil and other fossil fuels.
What to do about it?
Educate yourself!
Become politically active.
Spread the word on issues important to you.
Lessen your impact: CHANGE YOUR LIFESTYLE.
Change is possible, but we all have to act.
PS Sorry, how was science to blame again?
Last edited by RuffnReadyOzStyle; 05-30-2010 at 06:31 AM.
How the is Science to blame?
I'm with Nathan, Sisk and Blake, mouse.
Pulling a gun on someone without valid cause is indeed a crime. Previously you posted
You had a pretty good troll going, but you need to edit the gun part and explain how an attractive ex hooters/pole dancer would initiate making your second date to be at a motel.You simply go on a date and then the second date they invite you to a motel or apartment. After your naked a man comes in claiming to be the husband. sometimes with a gun in his hand.
Ruff leaves out the primary culprit, capitalist/corporate predation that values profits OVER everything, with the powerful, wealthy corps willing, and able, to up up people and the environment, to compromise and corrupt legislators and regulators which are the only countervailing power, to satisfy their insatiable desire for the ac ulation of wealth without limits.
While I sympathize with his position, Ruff's naive to think that citizen activism will even limit, never mind solve the problem. Irrepressible corporate money, now seen as "personal" money, owns the electoral process before it owns the politicians. The best financed candidates win 90% of the time. ie, the electoral process is bought by, sold by, and delivered to the corporations and capitalists.
America is ed. The class, race, gender wars are unwinnable, even over, won by Repug/conservative wealthy white males.
Last edited by boutons_deux; 05-30-2010 at 03:58 PM.
Before you all keep on attacking capitalism and greed you might want to consider the reason we have to drill out in 5000 ft of water in the first place.......govt restrictions on drilling on land.
I swear. listening to some of you people its like you'd think communist china during the 1960's was a super sweet place to live.
No I don't, you obviously missed this post:
BTW boutons, I'm not naive enough to think that activism will get anyone anywhere, otherwise I'd be an activist. However, a social movement where people utterly transformed their consumption choices would change everything. Do I think that's likely before the crunch comes? No. But it is the only way things might change.One final thing - this oil fiasco is not a failure of science, it is a failure of (in no particular order):
1. economics - which has encouraged us to over-exploit our non-renewable natural resources and thus quickly pushed us towards increasingly riskier mining, particularly of oil, and towards a point where oil will soon be scarce. That will be the first true tipping point for global civilisation, and it is looming sooner than you think. Meanwhile, we have disasterous oil spills like this because economics, and in particular its complete ignorance of externalities such as pollution and depletion, has locked oil and other fossil fuels into the key economic position around which everything gravitates. Break that nexus and you change the world.
2. engineering - since offshore drilling is not new, this has to be a failure of design, construction or materials... whichever it is, it has nothing to do with science (the discovery of new, universal, verifiable knowledge) and everything to do with poor engineering practices, probably as a result of cost cutting (see 1.) and lack of proper oversight (see 3.).
3. government - the government's job as regulator is to be vigilant on industry in order to maintain quality and safety standards and protect the public... this is a miserable regulatory failure.
4. politics - corporations now control national governments and use their influence to privatise and deregulate at every opportunity - the result is this and disasters like it, which are happening all the time. Voters are to blame for buying into bull binary politics rather than breaking down the Old Guard, and governments are to blame because they have been emasculated by ins utional corruption (bought by the lobbies) and thus act to stiffle change for the better.
5. ALL OF US - oil is embedded in everything we buy; food, transport, plastics, chemicals, electronics, anything transported to us, etc., so we are ALL complicit in this oil slick because our livestyles drive this insane demand for fossil fuels. Want fewer environmental disasters of all kinds, use less oil and other fossil fuels.
What to do about it?
Educate yourself!
Become politically active.
Spread the word on issues important to you.
Lessen your impact: CHANGE YOUR LIFESTYLE.
Change is possible, but we all have to act.
PS Sorry, how was science to blame again?
...or you could wake up and realise that there are no large oil deposits on land left to drill. You have 10-12bbl in ANWAR (4 months of world supply), and that's about it. You have oil shale in Colorado and the Canadians have their tar sands, but the major terrestrial liquid oil deposits on the North American continent have all been drilled, and non-conventional oil is far more expensive and environmentally damaging to produce per barrel than (non-spilled) conventional oil. But don't let the facts get in the way of your ignorance.
Technically science is to blame indirectly. If we never developed the technological advances required to drill at extreme depths and pressures, this never would of occurred. Technology can only advance by applied science (or extreme dumb luck).
Of course science is the reason that Mouse can even troll Ruff, so...
The future is in shale oil reserves. They are far greater than previously thought and the largest concentrations are in North America. The technology to extract it affordably will be available soon. Environmentalists probably won't be happy about this, but it's going to happen.
Ruff if Kori and LJ set up a live debate, are you game?
i will moderate
cry havoc is really into ruffandready though too, theyre close like bethleham and nazareth
Or maybe the reason he gets his kangaroo ass smoked? We all have have eyes ...........post where he kicked my ass...
I made this topic to prove a point...
NASA.....and Many other Organizations can't even cure Diabetes and they want to spend 60 billion of hard working tax paying Americans Dollars to maybe find a roach on Mars?
where do I sign up?............
Badger game. An oldie but a goody.
Good for who?
good point.
It does the rest of us no good and it hasn't worked for you either.
It got you to reply that alone speaks volumes.......
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/show...=119679&page=2
Post #33 is a start.
The rest of that page is pure "Man did I call it" gold on my part.
I have a few other threads where I push throwing money into renewables and so forth as a pretty good alternative to things like drilling oil that tend to have rather nasty side effects that many people don't factor into their thinking, when chanting "drill, baby, drill".
You might occasionally see the economic term "negative externality" when talking about this.
what good did it do me?
Oil shale and tar sands will never be economically profitable to produce, no matter how much you relax restrictions on environmental damage.
That energy might as well be on Pluto as far as its usefulness.
Both forms of hydrocarbon require that MOST of the energy you get out of tapping them MUST go back into getting the next unit of energy. Simple physics.
You got mouse to reply that means you may learn something.
Wrong. Shale oil is closer than you think.
pics?
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