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  1. #26
    Just Right of Atilla the Hun Yonivore's Avatar
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    And, still, we don't hold a candle to the amount of air toxins emitted into the atmosphere by one of these:

    Although human pollution, through the burning of fossil fuels, has contributed to acid deposition, rainwater is naturally acidic as a result of carbon dioxide in the air dissolving in the water. In addition, natural sources of sulphur and nitrogen emissions can contribute further to the acidity of rainwater.

    Natural sources of sulphur dioxide include release from volcanoes, biological decay and forest fires. Actual amounts released from natural sources in the world are difficult to quantify; in 1983 the United Nations Environment Programme estimated a figure of between 80 million and 288 million tonnes of sulphur oxides per year (compared to around 69 million tonnes from human sources world-wide).

    Natural sources of nitrogen oxides include volcanoes, oceans, biological decay and lightning strikes. Estimates range between 20 million and 90 million tonnes per year nitrogen oxides released from natural sources (compared to around 24 million tonnes from human sources worldwide).
    You know, they've determined that you could completely abandon Harris County, pull up the concrete, and remove every sign of human presence from the area and STILL, they'd be in violation of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for the emission of nitrogen oxides.

    Why? All the rotting biomass in the swamps and bayous.

    Toss into the mix, all those hydrocarbon-farting farm animals and Jeeze!

    ing Nature! Regulate her ass for a change.
    Last edited by Yonivore; 04-26-2006 at 04:03 PM.

  2. #27
    I Got Hops Extra Stout's Avatar
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    On my next trip to houston, I will randomly (heh) sample some well water from nearby refineries, and fill up 100 large water containers of 5 gallons each with this water. I will drop these containers off at your house, and if you drink all 500 gallons at one glass per meal, I will then advocate the relaxation of environmental standards to enable new refineries being built.

    I may be a " ing trip", but I *know* that you will not take me up on this, because we both know how polluting they are.
    You're comparing the following heavily rerofitted facilities to what a brand-new refinery with state-of-the-art environmental controls would be like?

    ExxonMobil Baytown - 1919
    S Deer Park - 1929
    Lyondell-Citgo Houston - 1920
    Valero Houston - 1942
    Crown Central Houston - 1925
    BP Texas City - 1934
    And the youngster of the group...
    Valero Texas City - 1951.

    Do you think just perhaps engineers have made some advancements in facility siting, containment, and other environmental controls over the past 50-80 that might work a whole lot better on a greenfield installation than they do on retrofitting ancient plants? Maybe if we could build some new refineries now and then, we could eventually shut down these old dinosaurs?

  3. #28
    Just Right of Atilla the Hun Yonivore's Avatar
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    Wait just a frappin' minute! You just accused him of thinking.

  4. #29
    Veteran scott's Avatar
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    I personally have drank treated refinery waste water. I wouldn't recommend it, but it was better than the stuff I'd get out of my tap in New York City.

  5. #30
    Veteran scott's Avatar
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    The primary driver in the cost of gasoline is not refineries. It is the cost of oil. Don't take my word for it, ask the cost accountants that work for the big oil companies. I loved my cost accounting course, and understand exactly what drives the price of a gallon of gas. It is all in the financial reports, if you know where to look.
    Here in lies the difference between accountants and economists. An accountant will devide the price of oil by the price of gasoline and say "X% of the price of gasoline is because of the high cost of oil!!!"

    An economist, however, will look beyond superficial numbers and ask WHY is the cost of oil high? Refining is the bottleneck, and refineries are the en ies that demand oil - not consumers. If you could stick any grade of crude oil in your engine, the price of crude would be a lot cheaper.

    Never ask an accountant for explanations on why prices are they way they are, he's just a bean counter.

    New refineries are a bad idea, in the US or anywhere. Any short-term economic benefit you might get out of reducing the cost of gasoline, is more than out-weighed by the extremely toxic pollution that results from even the clean refineries in the US.
    That would be an economically justifiable position... if I think that was a bunch of BS. Link?

  6. #31
    I am that guy RandomGuy's Avatar
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    And, still, we don't hold a candle to the amount of air toxins emitted into the atmosphere by one of these:


    You know, they've determined that you could completely abandon Harris County, pull up the concrete, and remove every sign of human presence from the area and STILL, they'd be in violation of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for the emission of nitrogen oxides.

    Why? All the rotting biomass in the swamps and bayous.

    Toss into the mix, all those hydrocarbon-farting farm animals and Jeeze!

    ing Nature! Regulate her ass for a change.
    The original post was indeed about oceanic acidity, much like your quoted post was.

    It then went on to talk about nitrous oxides, a completely different compound.

    I will readily accede that volcanoes put out more nitrous oxides than human activity, even without knowing your source of information, because it actually SUPPORTS the original post about the climate change thesis, but you weren't quite savvy enough to realize it, no offense.

    The recent sudden upsurge in oceanic acidity is directly tracable to atmospheric CO2. More CO2 in the atmophere equals acidity. Human activity contributes massively to the amount of CO2 in the air.

    Your post says that more nitrous compounds equals acidity. It then says that natural phenomenon contribute more of these compounds than human activity.

    If we have NOT contributed more than a natural amount of these compounds to the atmophere then the sudden increase of acidity PAST NATURAL LEVELS, must be attributable to the only causal variable that has changed at the same time, namely CO2.

    Just in case you aren't quite getting how your post actually supports my thesis, let's use an analogy that everybody can understand.

    One perons is pushing a car on level ground. It is moving along at a slow speed. (this is the nitrous emissions your post was about)

    Another perons gets in the car, turns on the engine, puts the car in gear, and hits the accelerator. (this is the human emission of massive amounts of CO2)

    Both have contributed to the car's ultimate speed.

    You have, in essence, said that the person who pushed contributed as much as to the car's speed as the person who hit the accelerator. Which is false to anybody with common sense.

    I would lastly say:

    Thanks for backing my post up with this new information.

  7. #32
    I am that guy RandomGuy's Avatar
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    Here in lies the difference between accountants and economists. An accountant will devide the price of oil by the price of gasoline and say "X% of the price of gasoline is because of the high cost of oil!!!"

    An economist, however, will look beyond superficial numbers and ask WHY is the cost of oil high? Refining is the bottleneck, and refineries are the en ies that demand oil - not consumers. If you could stick any grade of crude oil in your engine, the price of crude would be a lot cheaper.

    Never ask an accountant for explanations on why prices are they way they are, he's just a bean counter.



    That would be an economically justifiable position... if I think that was a bunch of BS. Link?
    Cost accounting and economics are more directly related than you suggest. I really like economics and finance, and read a lot more about them than most accountants anyways.

    BUT

    I gotta get to work. I will get to this later.

  8. #33
    A VERY BAD man
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    Gee, where are the anti-environmental idiots on this one?

    I guess silence is better than admitting the greenies MIGHT have a point?
    You should stop driving.

  9. #34
    Veteran scott's Avatar
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    Cost accounting and economics are more directly related than you suggest.
    No, they aren't. Don't make the mistake of confusing the bean counters with the decision makers.

  10. #35
    I am that guy RandomGuy's Avatar
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    You should stop driving.
    I should, but in this country, I have no choice. Our cities have evolved in a low-density format that makes mass transit unfeasible. The nature of my current employment makes the no-car option impossible. If I had a job at a single place, I would find housing right next door to my place of work, and use a bicycle with a small towed trailer for groceries.

    The solution to reducing CO2 emissions is fairly simple, but political suicide.

    Hike gasoline taxes by a good dollar per gallon, and put the money into rational city planning of mixed-use, high-density re-development of city centers, and build feasible mass transit systems while energy is still relatively cheap.

    Energy will become more and more expensive at a rate that will surpass inflation over the next 20-40 years. The longer we wait to do the inevitable, the more expensive it will be, both energetically and monetarily.

    Market forces will drive the changes I listed above due to the increasing costs of commuting over time as people make, as an aggregate, the decision to start living closer to where they work, or work closer to where they live.

    I simply wish we as a nation had the vision and the wisdom to act with some long-range vision and not the short term "me-first myopia" that seems to be the order of the day.

    The thing about hiking the price of gas with a tax is that it would force energy independence on us that much faster, killing two birds with one stone.

  11. #36
    I am that guy RandomGuy's Avatar
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    No, they aren't. Don't make the mistake of confusing the bean counters with the decision makers.
    Ok, smart guy. Explain to me the difference between cost accounting and economics. This oughta be good.

  12. #37
    I am that guy RandomGuy's Avatar
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    I personally have drank treated refinery waste water. I wouldn't recommend it, but it was better than the stuff I'd get out of my tap in New York City.
    I wasn't talking about treated refinery waste water.

    I was talking about the ground water underneath these things that has absorbed decades of toxic emissions and leaks.

  13. #38
    I am that guy RandomGuy's Avatar
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    You're comparing the following heavily rerofitted facilities to what a brand-new refinery with state-of-the-art environmental controls would be like?

    ExxonMobil Baytown - 1919
    S Deer Park - 1929
    Lyondell-Citgo Houston - 1920
    Valero Houston - 1942
    Crown Central Houston - 1925
    BP Texas City - 1934
    And the youngster of the group...
    Valero Texas City - 1951.

    Do you think just perhaps engineers have made some advancements in facility siting, containment, and other environmental controls over the past 50-80 that might work a whole lot better on a greenfield installation than they do on retrofitting ancient plants? Maybe if we could build some new refineries now and then, we could eventually shut down these old dinosaurs?
    This is actually the sanest argument for new refineries yet. If a new refinery was actually held to some very strict environmental standards, I would say go for it, and raise the taxes on the older refineries at the same time to level the playing field, and pay that into the Superfund.

    Environmental standards (a long term very positive plus) shouldn't be lowered for short term (waaah, I want cheaper gasoline for my SUV) concerns.

  14. #39
    Just Right of Atilla the Hun Yonivore's Avatar
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    Random Guy:

    I don't read your posts since I have you on ignore but, judging by the sheer number, just in this thread alone -- the last four in a row -- could I suggest you change your name to Ramblin' Guy?

  15. #40
    Veteran scott's Avatar
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    Ok, smart guy. Explain to me the difference between cost accounting and economics. This oughta be good.
    I don't have the time nor the patience to give you a lesson in economics 101. Feel free to post something of the effect of "that's what I thought because you can't."

    Here's a link to Wikipedia, figure it out yourself.

  16. #41
    I am that guy RandomGuy's Avatar
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    I don't have the time nor the patience to give you a lesson in economics 101. Feel free to post something of the effect of "that's what I thought because you can't."

    Here's a link to Wikipedia, figure it out yourself.
    Now I really am curious. I would like to hear your take on it.

  17. #42
    I am that guy RandomGuy's Avatar
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    Random Guy:

    I don't read your posts since I have you on ignore but, judging by the sheer number, just in this thread alone -- the last four in a row -- could I suggest you change your name to Ramblin' Guy?
    Coward. It is sad the way you can't stand up for your own ideas, but that is to be expected from the lazy types.

  18. #43
    Veteran scott's Avatar
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    For the sake of a friendly debate, why don't you tell me why you think Cost Accounting and Economics are alike, and I'll give you my opinion on it.

  19. #44
    Just Right of Atilla the Hun Yonivore's Avatar
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    For the sake of a friendly debate, why don't you tell me why you think Cost Accounting and Economics are alike, and I'll give you my opinion on it.
    You're feeding the monkey, scott.

  20. #45
    I am that guy RandomGuy's Avatar
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    Random Guy:

    I don't read your posts since I have you on ignore but, judging by the sheer number, just in this thread alone -- the last four in a row -- could I suggest you change your name to Ramblin' Guy?
    Heh, this was actually funny, I actually tried, but couldn't figure out how.

    Thanks for the idea.

  21. #46
    I am that guy RandomGuy's Avatar
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    For the sake of a friendly debate, why don't you tell me why you think Cost Accounting and Economics are alike, and I'll give you my opinion on it.
    Accounting, at the risk of oversimplifying, is nothing more than tracking economic events. In this sense you are correct that it mostly is simply describing information ("bean counting") than doing much analysis as to what those numbers mean in a broader sense, which is the study of economics.

    As my introductory accounting professor very succinctly said: "What did you give up, and what did you get?"

    BUT

    You can't be a good accountant without understanding economics, especially microeconomics.

    "One of the goals of the field of microeconomics is to analyze mechanisms and market forces that establish relative prices amongst goods and services and allocate society's resources amongst their many alternative uses."--wikipedia

    Cost accounting is a branch of accounting that, in deference to my my cost accounting textbook, :

    "Accounting systems take economic events and transactions, such as sales and materials purchases, and process that data into information helpful to manager, sales representatives, production supervisors, and others. Processing any economic transaction means collecting, categorizing, summarizing, and analysing...
    [cost accounting] measures, analyszes, and reports financial and nonfinacial information relating to the costs of acquiring or using resources in an organization.


    One must understand the costs that go into a product to be able to understand the true economic cost of anything, and cost accounting is the intersection between accounting and economics. Both disciplines require an understanding of supply and demand, and I would go so far as to call cost accountants a highly specialized branch of economists.

    We spent a good week studying bottlenecks and how to identify them (chapter 19 under "theory of constraints"), because they are so important to making good management decisions.

    In determining the costs of producing gasoline, such as you described, a cost accountant would not say flatly that "x percent" of the cost of gasoline is due to the cost of oil. The cost of gasoline is a URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependant_variable]dependant variable[/URL], with the independant variable being the cost of oil, with a high degree of correlation. The lack of refining capacity would also be an independant variable to consider.

    Both do drive the cost of gasoline to a certain degree. A cost accountant could tell you the same thing that an economist would, namely how much each does contribute to each unit of price. In this they are very much the same.

  22. #47
    I am that guy RandomGuy's Avatar
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    You're feeding the monkey, scott.
    Heh, you said "monkey".

    Believe it or not, some people actually like to throw ideas back and forth, and consider another person's point of view, as opposed to simply seeking to dismiss or ridicule.

    I will readily own up to the latter at times, when the former seems pointless, or I am feeling lazy. But I enjoy an intellectual work out, so I try to limit my laziness.

    I actually do take some of what you post into consideration when forming my own views. That's why I don't put you on ignore, even though I actually agree with very little of what you say.

  23. #48
    Garnett > Duncan sickdsm's Avatar
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    I should, but in this country, I have no choice. Our cities have evolved in a low-density format that makes mass transit unfeasible. The nature of my current employment makes the no-car option impossible. If I had a job at a single place, I would find housing right next door to my place of work, and use a bicycle with a small towed trailer for groceries.

    The solution to reducing CO2 emissions is fairly simple, but political suicide.

    Hike gasoline taxes by a good dollar per gallon, and put the money into rational city planning of mixed-use, high-density re-development of city centers, and build feasible mass transit systems while energy is still relatively cheap.

    Energy will become more and more expensive at a rate that will surpass inflation over the next 20-40 years. The longer we wait to do the inevitable, the more expensive it will be, both energetically and monetarily.

    Market forces will drive the changes I listed above due to the increasing costs of commuting over time as people make, as an aggregate, the decision to start living closer to where they work, or work closer to where they live.

    I simply wish we as a nation had the vision and the wisdom to act with some long-range vision and not the short term "me-first myopia" that seems to be the order of the day.

    The thing about hiking the price of gas with a tax is that it would force energy independence on us that much faster, killing two birds with one stone.
    Theoretically you'd help the enviroment by using your computer less by drivel like this. Which would in turn bring less replies from others saving energy, which would allow search engines like google and wikipedia to save on traffic, which also would lower the temp of the servers, routers equip. etc.. by 0.0000001 degrees which would keep the cooling system off a milisecond longer.


    You just probably burned a bushel full of coal with that one reply. Don't you hate yourself for that you enviroment trashing person?


    I pee on the bushes and on the grass when i feel like it, and you know what? Everything works out.

  24. #49
    Garnett > Duncan sickdsm's Avatar
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    I never about gasoline prices. I about dumb policies that are more political manuevering than effective. Look and you will not find any post where I complain that gasoline is too expensive. It is what it is, and I understand enough economics to know why.

    The primary driver in the cost of gasoline is not refineries. It is the cost of oil. Don't take my word for it, ask the cost accountants that work for the big oil companies. I loved my cost accounting course, and understand exactly what drives the price of a gallon of gas. It is all in the financial reports, if you know where to look.

    Lastly:

    New refineries are a bad idea, in the US or anywhere. Any short-term economic benefit you might get out of reducing the cost of gasoline, is more than out-weighed by the extremely toxic pollution that results from even the clean refineries in the US.

    If you want more refineries, then you need to start drinking the groundwater downstream from them. The long term costs of these ecological monstrosities is not to be underestimated in terms of damage to the only national resource that matters in the long run: people.

    I will make you a deal.

    On my next trip to houston, I will randomly (heh) sample some well water from nearby refineries, and fill up 100 large water containers of 5 gallons each with this water. I will drop these containers off at your house, and if you drink all 500 gallons at one glass per meal, I will then advocate the relaxation of environmental standards to enable new refineries being built.

    I may be a " ing trip", but I *know* that you will not take me up on this, because we both know how polluting they are.

    I am reminded of a former friend with epilepsy. He is (SURPISE!) from a small town downstream from some sort of refining facility. He has epilepsy, as so a freakishly large percentage of his high-school classmates. The rest of the town also has an abnormally high percentage of people with brain cancers.

    This is simple anecdotal evidence with no scientific support, but I don't need to spend millions of dollars to know that I would never take the above challenge.

    I am 100% serious about my offer of getting the water for you. Let me know where to drop it off, and I will spend my weekends getting the water to poison you.

    When you decline my offer be sure to add the word "hypocrite" to your siggy.

    Wow man, way to go out on a limb with that deal. I'll make you a deal. If you go out on the SBC center floor during play at the next game, de-pants Duncan, kick him in the nuts and at your option, pee or rub your bum on his lips and yell to the crowd "wouldn't you rather have KG then this sorry case of vaginitis?" and the crowd disagrees with you, I will admit to everyone on here that Tim is the better player/fit for that team and will take a one year vacation from spurstalk.


    Deal?

  25. #50
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    May 3, 2006

    Federal Study Finds Accord on Warming

    By ANDREW C. REVKIN

    A scientific study commissioned by the Bush administration concluded yesterday that the lower atmosphere was indeed growing warmer and that there was "clear evidence of human influences on the climate system."

    The finding eliminates a significant area of uncertainty in the debate over global warming, one that the administration has long cited as a rationale for proceeding cautiously on what it says would be costly limits on emissions of heat-trapping gases
    .

    But White House officials noted that this was just the first of 21 assessments planned by the federal Climate Change Science Program, which was created by the administration in 2002 to address what it called unresolved questions. The officials said that while the new finding was important, the administration's policy remained focused on studying the remaining questions and using voluntary means to slow the growth in emissions of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide.

    ( iow, no action from the polluting, business-protecting/enriching Repugs. "voluntary" never works. "self-regulation" NEVER works. "more study" isn't needed. This is just more do-nothing "Repug science" )

    The focus of the new federal study was conflicting records of atmospheric temperature trends.

    For more than a decade, scientists using different methods had come up with differing rates of warming at Earth's surface and in the midsection of the atmosphere, called the troposphere. These disparities had been cited by a small group of scientists, and by the administration and its allies, to question a growing consensus among climatologists that warming from heat-trapping gases could dangerously heat Earth.

    The new study found that "there is no longer a discrepancy in the rate of global average temperature increase for the surface compared with higher levels in the atmosphere," in the words of a news release issued by the Commerce Department and approved by the White House. The report was published yesterday online at climatescience.gov.

    The report's authors all agreed that their review of the data showed that the atmosphere was, in fact, warming in ways that generally meshed with computer simulations. The study said that the only factor that could explain the measured warming of Earth's average temperature over the last 50 years was the buildup heat-trapping gases, which are mainly emitted by burning coal and oil.

    All other industrial powers except Australia have accepted mandatory restrictions on such gases under the Kyoto Protocol, but efforts to extend and expand that treaty face hurdles.

    The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body that conducts an exhaustive periodic review of causes and impacts of warming, has just finished reviewing drafts of its next assessment, to be published next year.

    Scientists involved in that effort, while refusing to comment on specific findings, said that research since the last assessment, in 2001, had generated much greater certainty that humans are the main force behind recent warming, and that much more warming is in store unless emissions are curtailed.

    Michele St. Martin, a spokeswoman for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said, "We welcome today's report" and added that it showed that President Bush's decision to focus nearly $2 billion a year on climate monitoring and research was "working."

    ( what's "working" is that the Repugs have wasted 6 years doing nothing to reduce carbon emissions, doing nothing on conservation of oil and swtiching to alternative fuels and transport engines)

    Thomas Karl, the director of the National Climatic Data Center in the Commerce Department and the lead editor of the report, said it was not simply a review of existing work but also, by forcing scientists with differing views to meet repeatedly, resulted in breakthroughs.

    "The evidence continues to support a substantial human impact on global temperature increases," Dr. Karl said.

    John R. Christy, an author of the new report whose analysis of satellite temperature records long showed little warming above Earth's surface, said he endorsed the conclusion that "part of what has happened over the last 50 years has clearly been caused by humans."

    But Dr. Christy, who teaches at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, said the report also noted that computer simulations of the climate system, while good at replicating the globally averaged temperature changes, still strayed in projecting details, particularly in the tropics.

    This implied that the models remained laden with uncertainties when used to study future trends, he said.

    Dr. Christy also said that even given what the models projected, it would be impossible to slow warming noticeably in the coming decades. Countries would be wise to seek ways to adapt to warming, he added, even as they seek new sources of energy that do not emit heat-trapping gases.

    Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
    Last edited by boutons_; 05-03-2006 at 07:42 AM.

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