77 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, December 9”

  1. A couple of days ago I ran across this pdf:
    https://www.connectingdots.one/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/2021-12-CarbonRemovalFromOceans-26278.pdf

    A Research Strategy for Ocean-based Carbon Dioxide Removal and Sequestration

    BOX S.1: STATEMENT OF TASK
    With the goal of reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide, an ad hoc committee will conduct a study
    exclusively focused on carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and sequestration conducted in coastal and open oceanwaters to:
    A. Identify the most urgent unanswered scientific and technical questions, as well as questions surrounding governance, needed to: (i) assess the benefits, risks, and potential scale for carbon dioxide removal and sequestration approaches; and (ii) increase the viability of responsible carbon dioxide removal and sequestration;
    B. Define the essential components of a research and development program and specific steps that would be required to answer these questions;
    C. Estimate the costs and potential environmental impacts of such a research and development program to the extent possible in the timeframe of the study.
    D. Recommend ways to implement such a research and development program that could be used by public or private organizations.
    The carbon dioxide removal approaches to be examined include:
    • Iron, nitrogen, or phosphorus fertilization
    • Artificial upwelling and downwelling
    • Seaweed cultivation
    • Recovery of ocean and coastal ecosystems, including large marine organisms
    • Ocean alkalinity enhancement
    • Electrochemical approaches.

    Although its good that research is going into how to clean up the mess we have made it is also a bit frustrating because there is/was tons of information out there that CO2 was going to cause problems. The knowledge was there (albeit not as comprehensive as it is today of course) yet we chose to just pump out CO2 like there was no tomorrow.

    rgds
    WP

    1. we chose to just pump out CO2 like there was no tomorrow

      As we continue to do——

      1. On a lighter note; I understand that there is now a SLIGHTLY less environmentally destructive method for all the worlds wealthy to individually drive their ass 6 blocks to the mall. Cheer up butter cup- at least we don’t have to take the bus.

    2. CLEAN, QUIET, ELECTRIC POWER.

      The new VANQUISH™ model brings stand-on mowing to the Evolution Series. Available with a 52” or 60” cut (side/rear discharge), the VANQUISH runs for up to 7 hours continuously at speeds of up to 11.5 mph. It features the same patented ZTR technologies as our riders. The VANQUISH is quiet, low maintenance, and has zero emissions.

      • Evolution Series ZTR Stand-On Mowers
      • 52″ or 60″ Cutting Width
      • Battery Options: 14.5 kWh, 22 kWh
      • 36 HP equivalent
      • Up to 7 hours per charge
      • Speeds up to 11.5 mph

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slIbLU8GEjY

      1. Ah yes, maintaining the Sod Patch. Very keen.

        “The American way of life is not up for negotiations. Period.” – George H.W. Bush

  3. The ‘West’ is a heterogeneous place, varying from Rainforest to stark Desert, in its natural state.
    In the state I live average annual rainfall varies from 180″ down to less than 7″.
    Rainfall amount is by the primary determinant of vegetation potential in the west.

    Soil conditions are also a big determinant, and the soil has indeed been heavily degraded by logging and grazing- expanding the areas that have desert vegetation, but to a much greater degree expanding the areas of chaparral and grassland/dry forest- at the expense of wetter forests.
    This state of affairs is common around the world in areas of rainfall that is below roughly 25″ annual rainfall.

    https://reliefweb.int/report/world/world-atlas-desertification-rethinking-land-degradation-and-sustainable-management

    1. Thank you very much for the link and comments!

      I am a novice when it comes to the environmental considerations, but this is very good. A weakness when it comes to my perspective. I read the report; well just the 2 most important ones out of 248 pages as of yet.

      Energy surplus enables much more productivity than is natural, so how to cope with less and at the same time cope with limits in the environmental space. Collapse? So they say. Is it going to be patchwork more than a collapse? Yes IMO. And drawn out over time – 2050 is not any sort of limit.

      1. Kolbeinh- “Collapse? “…. or if we are lucky a ‘managed contraction’
        Still waiting for a recipe that won’t include absolute anarchy, or fascist tyranny.

        1. I am just being careful with my words. And I don’t really like your reply really; nor should I. Words about the solution is easy to come by, but I see your point.

    2. Yeah, my native Appalachia suffered a massive ecological collapse less than a century after Europeans settled it, making it one of America’s poorest regions.

  4. Anybody else think the omicron variant should technically be the start of the end of the pandemic.

    It seems the omicron variant is outcompeting delta. Which might mean the virus has found the optimal (or close to) variation where it can reproduce the most without killing/affecting the host.

    Also if there is any immunologists out there, what happens if an individual gets delta and omicron at the same time? Do they compete for lung tissue inside the host? And if so, can we assume omicron will outcompete delta for lung tissue?

    1. If omicron infection does indeed end up being a more mild illness then I agree that we could be entering the the post-peak phase of the pandemic overall severity.
      New oral anti-virals meds likely to be coming out will also help with this, as did the introduction of steroids earlier.

      Regarding the simultaneous infection issue it is an interesting hypothetical that i have not seen discussed. Unlikely to be a clinically relevant occurrence, since almost always it is one virus that gets hold and runs wild quickly.

      i did see a new report that the immunity gained from prior Covid infection with Alpha, Beta, and Delta strains did not do well at holding off Omicron re-infection. But that prior infection plus vaccination did give good blocking immunity.
      At least for now.

      “A study over the weekend showed that neutralizing antibodies among people previously infected with Alpha (panel E), Beta (panel F), and Delta (panel G) completely failed to attach to Omicron. Those that were previously infected vaccinated (or vaccinated previously infected) had a strong response to Omicron (panel H).”

    2. The omicron virus is substantially different from the delta variant, to the extent that having been infected with delta provides very little protection against infection with omicron. A small scale study in Israel points to the protection provided by existing vaccines is very limited, and there are many cases of people with booster doses of vaccine being infected. Reported cases in the UK are doubling each day, yesterday 1000, today 2000, and it is rapidly becoming the dominant strain of Covid. It is too early to say how virulent the virus is, the UK currently has 10 hospitalisations and 1 death from Omicron. The differences between delta and omicron are so large, they may as well be considered as different virus. Infection with one may provide very little immune response to prevent infection from the other. We do not yet have a clear picture of which human tissue types are more prone to damage from it, or the body’s own attempts to eradiacate it. Omicron may not outcompete delta, they could both continue as separate simultaneous pandemics
      We will have a much clearer answer in one week, two at most, as the virus is out of control and the government is not putting in the level of lockdown it will take to control it. I expect the majority of the UK population to be infected by year’s end

    3. No, omicron won’t be the end of pandemic because new variants are going to keep appearing all the time, most likely in the fall.

  5. Andrew Nikiforuk on Getting Real about Our Crises

    https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2021/12/06/Andrew-Nikiforuk-Getting-Real-About-Our-Crises/?utm_source=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=061221

    Tech Won’t Save Us. Shrinking Consumption Will

    https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2021/11/03/Tech-Will-Not-Save-Us-Shrinking-Consumption-Will/

    And furthermore; Tainter’s recent interview. For those who feel collapse immune.

    https://youtu.be/w9LL5zlZrVc

    Survival Heuristics
    https://youtu.be/kNv2PlqmsAc

    1. Thanks. Tainter has a good discussion about the decreasing profitability of oil, and EROI. “The productivity of our system of energy production…has gone from an energy return of 100:1 in the 1940s to 15:1 today. … Renewable resources are not very productive…etc.”

      2. As long as it is positive, EROI is a very bad mesurement of the quality of an energy source.

        The German brown coal power plant in the Lausitz for example has a raw output of round about 4 GW. 10% goes straight into powering the all electric mining equipment to carve out the coal. Does this matter? No. So it’s just a 3.6 GW power plant.

        The same with fusion, where all components are now ready to be put together (process understood, plasma behaviour known, 20 Tesla magnets constructed ). The first ones will have an own energy consumption of perhaps 30-40%. Does this matter? No – the fuel is cheap.

        EROI is important if your energy source is picking up sticks in the wood and carrying them on your back into town – on a long long road.

        And oil is no energy business anymore. It’s transportation business. Energy is coal, gas, wind, solar, hydro and nuclear.

    1. Indeed

      Hundreds of covid cases reported at Tesla plant following Musk’s defiant reopening, county data shows

      https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/03/12/hundreds-covid-cases-reported-tesla-plant-following-musks-defiant-reopening-county-data-shows/

      Tesla gave workers permission to stay home rather than risk getting covid-19. Then it sent termination notices

      https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/06/25/tesla-plant-firings/

      Tesla: Elon Musk says company headquarters will move to Texas
      “Mr Musk had fallen out with local politicians in Alameda county, California, the location of a key Tesla factory, over its Covid response.”
      https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-58838874

      Many billionaires have proposed solutions to the climate change problem, but oddly none mention taking away their money as being one of them.

      I forecast more pockmarked walls in the future.

      2. Toyota to introduce 30 BEV models by 2030, boost battery spending to ¥2T

        https://www.greencarcongress.com/2021/12/20211214-toyota.html

        Harley-Davidson to spin-out LiveWire electric motorcycle division as public company via SPAC; $545M in proceeds

        https://www.greencarcongress.com/2021/12/20211214-livewire.html

        With new 58 kWh battery pack option, Hyundai IONIQ 5 to start at $39,700

        https://www.greencarcongress.com/2021/12/20211214-ioniq.html

        Mission Accomplished- The debate is over

      3. Is Fracking Really Putting America’s Water Supply At Risk

        https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Is-Fracking-Really-Putting-Americas-Water-Supply-At-Risk.html

        FEMA Chief: Magnitude Of Recent Tornadoes ‘New Normal’ Due To Climate Crisis

        https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fema-tornadoes-new-normal-climate-crisis_n_61b6644be4b089ee1c35f2d0

        “At every turn, the Doomers have passed judgment from their keyboards. Sometimes they were vaguely right, but mostly they were outright wrong. I can’t explain why Doomers doom any more than I can explain why crooners croon, but I assume it’s simply a preference for the homebody life and/or crippling depression”

        1. I can’t explain why Doomers doom any more than I can explain why crooners croon, but I assume it’s simply a preference for the homebody life and/or crippling depression”

          Anyone who cannot see what 8 billion humans are doing to the planet has to be stone ass blind in the head. That is their brain is blind to what their eyes and ears tell them.

          And doomers are not wrong. It is happening everywhere. Perhaps it is happening so slowly that slow minds cannot comprehend what is actually happening.

          1. HB feels it’s worth mentioning that Doomers are perhaps depressed homebody’s? I suppose it’s an effort to insult those with a different take on future trends analysis than his own. It’s also reveals a profound insensitivity to those suffering from depression and mental health illness.

            HB, if you want to insult me I get it; please consider being more thoughtful of others and not stigmatizing those who suffer mental illness. Or keep it up; it says a lot about your character, or lack there of.

            Once again HB reveals his childish attitudes and lack of wisdom.

            Here’s the article by so called comedian Will Noonan from which HB gained that nugget of wisdom. Weak tea from the SoCal cornucopians, as usual.

            https://caughtinsouthie.com/features/okay-doomersome-thoughts-on-doomscrolling-and-doomers/

            1. Doomer

              A person (usually a millennial or generation Z and male) who has experienced apparent hardship (relationship breakup, job loss, failure etc.) and has became fully immersed in apathy, self hatred, depression and generally being a loner. Usually asleep or tired in the day and more active at the night, spending time on the internet or going on long night walks ruminating.

              https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Doomer

        2. See LATE BRONZE AGE COLLAPSE.

          Who are we to think we’re more special than the poor schmucks in Hatti, Mycenae, Ugarit, Egypt and Assyria?

          Mutually-interdependent, complex, trading, energy-and-ore-dependent partners have too much on their plate to manage…

          … and given a climate blip, or a cut trade route, or internal rebellion . . . boom, down.

          A great book, 1177 B. C. The Year Civilization Collapsed

            2. Thanks. This was required in a course I took. Great stuff!

              (In the book, he gives Tainter his due.)

              As an adjunct writing instructor at the U where I teach, I can take a free class–for credit or not–each semester. I’ve taken 4 bio evolution courses, 3 anthro courses, and one history of ancient near east. The Bronze Age now obsesses me. It has transformed not only how I view the Bible, but it has goosed my doomerism as well!

            3. ” 4 bio evolution courses, 3 anthro courses, and one history of ancient near east.”
              I’m jealous.

      4. Survivor- point taken on your favorite billionaire, but you just trolled my post dude.

        The data in the article shows the pandemic being much worse in the counties that voted more heavily for Trump. He is the political godhead for the Willful Ignorant crowd.

        as an aside- Musk interviewed in Nov 2016-
        “Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he doesn’t think Republican candidate Donald Trump is the right person to lead the United States of America.
        I feel … that he is probably not the right guy. He doesn’t seem to have the sort of character that reflects well on the United States,”
        Musk said Hillary Clinton’s economic and environmental policies are the “right ones,” but he added, “I don’t think is our finest hour in democracy in general.”

        1. If Biden quit trying to convince the anti-vaxxer to get vaccinated and just say “let them die”. America would be 95% vaccinated.

        2. Point taken.

          It is well knows that the Tesla factory was operational in March and April 2020 in violation of the multi-county-wide shutdown order.The integrity gap between Trump & Musk is not exactly the deep blue sea. Same shit, different pile; just another billionaire who doesn’t care about workers. Pro tip- don’t put them in charge of the citizenry.

          I feel Trumpsters and Musk Fanbois are equally deluded; they’re cults arguing over their preferred theology. As the rising tide of consequences laps at our sternum, the cultists shall sacrifice themselves first by hoisting their preferred hyper capitalist douche bag billionaire upon their shoulders.

          Tesla’s Fremont Factory Doubled as COVID-19 Hotspot in 2020, New Report Suggests
          https://sfist.com/2021/03/13/teslas-fremont-factory-doubled-as-covid-19-hotspot-in-2020-new-report-suggests/

          1. Oh, but I vote Green because there is no difference between Republicans and Democrats.

            Says the idiot, I mean uneducated or poorly educated.

            1. I’d pick him to run a company, and her to protect us from people like him.

  7. He is from Orange County (I actually lived in Huntington Beach).
    Reality is not behind the Orange Curtain.

    1. Isn’t Bend Oregon were used cars go to die ? Just think, in twenty years you can own a Tesla (Hippopotamus) and retire your Geo Metro.

      1. 2nd fastest growing city in US.
        But agree, wingnuts with F350’s are common.
        For some, a F150 is a compact.
        While not as delusional as Newport Beach (my sister lives there), it is trying.

        I’m moving back to Marin.

        1. The LA basin and it’s Mediterranean weather with solar panel sunny days is ideal for a minimal CO2 footprint. It’s the reason a 1500 sq. home cost a million dollars. Compared to a mobile home, 5 acres for 15K and watching the jets fly over at 35,000 feet.

          1. Agree—-
            But in 1967, three months rent on the beach in Huntington was $90.
            Dana Point had 400 people.
            I lived in Laguna for years, and met my wife there.

            If you don’t have a direct relative who lived in CA before 1925, you should need a visa.

            It’s not Marin, but maybe I could live there.
            Need to get the alien peasants out.

            1. The Mexican–American War,[a] also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the Intervención estadounidense en México (U.S. intervention in Mexico),[b] was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848.

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican%E2%80%93American_War

              You have the wrong year. The white man is the alien. It should be 1846. Mister Trump and Republicans, tear down your wall.

            2. Please HB, embrace reality.
              The Clovis were here first.
              Pay Attention!

            3. Or maybe not quite first:

              https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2509-0.epdf

              “Conclusion:
              Stone tools and chemical residue evidence suggest that humans were present in Chiquihuite Cave, at least between the LGM terminus and the onset of the Younger Dryas. LGM and pre-LGM human presence is supported by stone flaked artifacts in SC-C, below stratum 1212.
              […]
              The occupants of the cave were seemingly adapted to altitudes and mountain landscapes, showing a behavioural pattern that — to our knowledge — was previously unknown in the archaeological record of the Americas. Their lithic industry has no parallel in the continent and its qualitative traits suggest a mature technology, possibly brought in from elsewhere before the LGM.”

            4. During the late 60’s, we would camp on the weekends Dohney, San Clemente and Carlsbad. Early 80’s did 7up pre-sales Laguna to San Clemente and south of Crown Valley. San Clemente pier and Laguna Beach Hotel are favorites to have a drink or meal.

              I thought the earth was only 600 years old

            5. It seems more and more likely that humans from various regions, over thousands of years, arrived to the Western Hemisphere by various means–via land and sea–and settled and died out, or stayed a while and left, with the “Clovis” people perhaps being those whose decendents have persisted here to the present.

              We prefer clear-cut origin stories, though: X was The First to arrive, at such place, at such time, and here are the descendents of X…but things don’t work like that….

  8. Still no longterm storage of high level radioactive waste, however-

    Nuscale small modular reactor is moving along, and just has aranged more funding and will go public-
    ‘NuScale’s Power Module is a pressurised water reactor with all the components for steam generation and heat exchange incorporated into a single unit, capable of generating up to 77 MWe. In 2020, it became the first – and to date, only – SMR to receive standard design approval from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The company offers plant configurations of four, six and 12 power modules under the recently announced VOYGR name.

    NuScale is currently working with Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems to deploy a NuScale VOYGR power plant in 2029, on a site at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Idaho National Laboratory. It has also been working to develop its customer pipeline beyond the USA, and has some 19 Memoranda of Understanding or agreements in 11 countries.”

    https://world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/NuScale-merger-to-accelerate-SMR-commercialisation

  9. One characteristic that I feel is shared by both Trumpsters and techno cornucopian fanbois is that they process information in the same way that they consume entertainment. I feel it is a result of the feeble minded being left behind by the 24/7 news cycle and social media dominated news feeds. Objective reality is denied; to wit, if you’re a doomer then you must be a depressed shut in- perhaps some SSRI’s will improve ones predictions and make the future more pleasant for all. That seems a flawed model for future trends analysis. Ones hopes are synonymous with ones predictions.

    1. We know that earth’s climate can and has changed very fast in the past. What I find particularly interesting when doing my own independent analysis of the subject is how 1976 was the coldest year for many of us (recall that was about the time of all the “new ice age is coming” articles) and also the year of the Great Pacific Climate Shift. For most of the globe including the Arctic, the climate has not been the same as before or since.

      1. Ah yes, 1976, the coldest year… Oh wait, that’s complete and utter horseshit.

        1. That’s what happens to those who “do [their] own independent analysis of the subject”: They get their asses handed to them, each cheek packaged in its own independent container.

      2. Hey LB, thanks for coming out. You sound like a real Cracker Jack! Did your mother have any children that lived? Haha JK.
        It would do you no harm to know that most of the worlds food is grown on land in the mid latitudes of the northern hemisphere. Vis vis the pending peak oil and climate change induced famine, I recommend tinned gravy and hot sauce; makes damn near ANYTHING taste good.

        On the weather depends the harvest, On the harvest depends everything.

        FWIW- I vacillate between extreme empathy for the worlds most down trodden, who will surely endure the worst of this awful mess, and wanting to buy more ammo. It’s a dichotomy; the duality of man.

  12. In the beginning of the CV2 pandemic, there was a bit of discussion about how lower lethality viruses can possibly kill a lot more people than more lethal ones. This phenomenon has a name, ‘the scary virus paradox’, at least according to Tomas Pueyo who is not a virologist but an MBA with expertise in exponential growth who ‘went viral’ in 2020 with a post entitled “Coronavirus: Why You Must Act Now”.

    He’s got a new post on Omicron: https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/the-omicron-question where he elucidates the SV Paradox with data.

    The money quote:

    If you haven’t had COVID before, you’re going to get it.

    You can only escape it while you lock yourself out. The moment you come back into society, you will get exposed to it. Paradoxically, this can be good.

    This is the final battle for COVID. It’s throwing everything it has at us and will overwhelm the world. But in doing so, it might have weakened itself. And it’s attacking at a moment when the world is well-armed with vaccines and prior infections.

    In this final battle, many people will die. But they might be few in comparison to what it could have been.

    This all hangs on one data point, the Omicron Question: the fatality rate

    With vaccines

    With previous infection

    Without vaccine or previous infection

    It will take us a few weeks to get that data. Only when we get that will we be able to tell if Omicron is good or bad. I’m hopeful based on anecdotal evidence and community prediction, but we just don’t know. If you find research that can inform us, please share it with me.

    In the meantime, I’ll get my booster shot, mix-and-match it, get my N955 masks back out, avoid massive indoor parties, and vaccinate my kids. Which is what I was going to do anyway.

    Hopefully we’ll emerge on the other side of this wave in a world where our immunity to COVID is so strong that we don’t need to worry about it beyond getting our booster shots every now and then.

    In a press conference, German health minister Jens Spahn said: “[B]y the end of this winter pretty much everyone in Germany … will have been vaccinated, recovered or died.”, but German virologist Hendrik Streeck disagrees saying: “It moves from social group to social group, and that’s why it behaves in natural waves, If we don’t get a higher rate of vaccination, we will have it next winter and next fall again. We have to prepare for the long-term and also think about next year.”

    Common theme here though: get vaccinated.

  13. https://www.sciencealert.com/gigantic-eruption-from-dragon-star-is-a-dire-warning-about-the-sun

    I’ve been wondering about such possibilities for years…… not losing any sleep about it, but wondering…. and knowing that astronomers haven’t had the necessary observational capacity and time to spend actually looking for such events.

    I know very little about astronomy, but it’s my impression that astronomers could have witnessed any where from dozens of such events, to thousands of them, maybe even millions of them, over the last century, if only they had had telescopes sufficiently powerful to have seen them.

    This particular study apparently uses the newest and most sophisticated techniques to study a single star for an extended period of time from several different observatories, and combining the observations to come up with the results.

    Maybe we should have the occasional bad dream about such events.

    1. OFM,

      Rarely a bad dream about such events….

      “While their findings indicate that the Sun could be capable of such violent extremes, they also suggest that superflares and super CMEs are probably rare for stars as old as the Sun. But as Notsu explained, super CMEs may have been much more common billions of years ago when our Solar System was still forming.“

  14. For those here who label themselves as doomers, a head’s up: doomerism is now considered a potent form of climate change misinformation.

    Climate Change Denial Is Morphing into a More Dangerous Form of Misinformation
    https://www.diplomaticourier.com/posts/climate-change-denial-is-morphing-into-a-more-dangerous-form-of-misinformation

    A new report by Logically and APCO Worldwide titled “Climate change misinformation in the age of COVID-19,” has uncovered some of the ways in which climate misinformation is evolving away from denial into multiple, complex narratives. The research, which analyzed an extensive dataset of 6.67 million news media and social media posts across the open internet, found that denialist narratives were a negligible proportion of online conversations over the past few years. Instead, climate change misinformation now encompasses a broad set of narratives, including, among others, the belief in “doomerism”—the idea that the climate is changing but that it has advanced too far for human intervention to have an impact—as well as the idea that climate action is an expensive scam to siphon money off to the wealthy.

    1. That’s one of the weirdest f-ing things I’ve ever heard. So, acknowledging the severity of the problem is now a form of denialism?

      The idea that climate change has advanced beyond repair is NOT a new idea.

      And it is simply TRUE that “I” can do nothing about it. As for “human intervention”… who TF knows….

      1. ANY thought that in any way denies the “bright green future” will be demonized.

        There are two components to the prevailing narrative on the political left:

        1. The climate is changing, and that’s bad.
        2. All we have to do is make the choice to embrace new green tech, and everything will be fantastic going forward.

        Historically, it’s #1 that has been denied. But denying #2 is just as damaging to the narrative. Without both components, a problem to solve and a solution at hand, the narrative does not have any power over people’s thoughts and actions.

        1. 2. All we have to do is make the choice to embrace new green tech, and everything will be fantastic going forward.

          That’s the strawman I was talking about before. I think you’ll have a hard time finding any mainstream environmentalist saying that, or anything like it.

          I recognize that washing the dishes doesn’t get my clothes clean. Nevertheless, I still wash the dishes…

      2. Example of how the do nothing Doomer works-

        https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-december-1/#comment-731209

        SURVIVALIST 12/06/2021 at 1:54 pm

        Holy Fuck Nick; rather than hold your had while we restate the painfully obvious, how about you acknowledge that at best EVs, your panacea for humanity, are nothing more than a slightly less environmentally damaging form of personal transport.
        Anybody who thinks a global EV fleet will save humanity from overshoot and climate change, and the world from degradation by humans, is a either a dupe or a shill. Think of ICE as a beer, and EVs as a light beer. At best they’ll buy humanity some time to kick the can down the road while we further destroy life on earth. That’s your magic bullet. It’s laughable.

      3. They’re not saying doomerism is denalism, but deliberate misinformation.

        2. Dan, it starts that way, but the ideas are spread by people who don’t understand they’ve been misled, recruited into protecting FF interests.

          And they’ll be vulnerable to feeing very insulted if you suggest that they’ve been misled.

    2. The core idea of climate denial is that “nothing should be done”. It originates with fossil fuel interests, who want to prevent any harm to their business, and the ideas are spread by people who don’t understand they’ve been misled, recruited into protecting FF interests.

      the bottom line is: Don’t harm FF interests by pushing for a transition away from FF.

      It starts with “the climate isn’t changing”. It can move to
      “climate always changes, it’s no big deal”, to
      “climate always changes, we have nothing to do with it”, to
      “climate is less important than other environmental problems, so we shouldn’t do anything about it”, to
      “climate change is too expensive to deal with, and we shouldn’t do anything about it”, to
      “climate change would require too much social change to deal with, and we shouldn’t do anything about it”, to
      “climate change is beyond our control, and we can’t do anything about it”.

      The core idea is always the same: nothing should be done.

      1. “Should” and “can” are different words.

        You’re goddamn right we should have done something about it, but we didn’t, and now we’re screwed.

        They’ve been talking about this shit since I was a geology major in the 1970s. Nothing. Has. Been. Done.

        Climate change isn’t even the issue! Overshoot is the issue.

        William Rees on Why we’re screwed, in 58 minutes.

        1. They’ve been talking about this shit since I was a geology major in the 1970s. Nothing. Has. Been. Done.

          So, are you saying ” Not enough has been done, so we should do nothing”?

          Climate change isn’t even the issue! Overshoot is the issue.

          Are you saying “climate is less important than other environmental problems, so we shouldn’t do anything about it”?

    3. “doomerism”—the idea that the climate is changing but that it has advanced too far for human intervention to have an impact–

      Oh, bullshit. Human intervention can definitely have an impact but just cannot fix it. A worldwide effort might help and delay any catastrophic event. However, it will take a worldwide effort and that is not going to happen. China’s coal consumption is increasing. Only a few nations are doing a damn thing. People who think we can persuade people to fix the world’s problems just don’t understand human nature.

      as well as the idea that climate action is an expensive scam to siphon money off to the wealthy.

      And the bullshit just keeps piling up. That is the first time I have heard that stupid conspiracy theory. I know of no one or no organization that says global warming is a scam to siphon money from the wealthy. Yes, a lot of idiots say it’s a scam. However, most of them are ignorant Trumpites and are far from wealthy.

      1. Ron,

        The key point here is action. You’ve said that you think that taking action is a good idea. The problem is people who say we should do nothing.

        Feeling pessimistic about our chances of dealing successfully with climate change is understandable, but that’s very different from suggesting that we should do nothing at all about it.

  15. A passing thought (I can hear the green washers screams-of-denial all the way up here!).

    THE WORLD IS BURNING THE MOST COAL EVER TO KEEP THE LIGHTS ON

    “The world likely will generate more electricity from the dirtiest source this year than ever before, indicating just how far the energy transition still needs to run in the fight against climate change. The U.S. and European Union had the biggest increases in coal use at about 20% each, followed by India at 12% and China — the world’s largest consumer — at 9%. The comeback is being driven by economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, which is outpacing the ability of low-carbon energy sources to maintain supply.”

    https://phys.org/news/2021-12-world-coal.html

    1. So, are you saying ” Not enough has been done, so we should do nothing”?

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