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bluejay60

Listed below are comments made by bluejay60 between Monday, 28th September 2009 and Saturday, 31st October 2009.

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Can rural America hold the world to ransom? 06:57am on 31 Oct 2009 Fossil fuels formed over a span of several hundred million years, but we are burning through a good portion of them in several hundred years. That's a big difference in rate that is missed by the 'the earth was hotter in the past, the fossil carbon came out of the air' arguements.

I'm not up in arms about carbon! I think the present focus on carbon is becoming a distraction from the approach of looking at complete life cycle costs, all life cycle pollution/environmental impacts, even water use like wet or dry cooling, when comparing energy strategies.

As for market forces, it appears that Wyoming coal might have been cheaper than WV coal until some environmental considerations seemed to have been pushed aside to expand the mountaintop mining approach (I suppose the huge Powder River mines have economies of scale and getting coal hauled from WV ridgetops presents some added transportation costs).

Clean coal technology holds future promise but it's not established yet, so isn't it jumping the gun to argue that 'clean coal' is the reason to mine more right now? Have the current crop of mountaintop mines proven they can restore woodlands and protect rivers from all the mine tailings?
Ethical Man returns to America 10:09pm on 30 Oct 2009 I see this question about where the science research money comes from a lot. It seems to assert that scientists are driven by pursuit of grant money above all else. I have a couple of earth science degrees and work outside academia. I'm an avid student of what used to be called 'natural history' and follower of as many fields as scant time allows. I'm also trying to raise my kids with enough scientific/skeptical thinking skills to see through life's smoke and mirrors.

Where does the money for both sides of the 'debate' come from? The money to lobby against IPCC, the money to lobby against cigarette/cancer links, against asbestos claims, etc. all came plentifully from BIG business. That money feeds what seems to me to be a largely false 'debate'. And that money feeds many lawyers who have more financial stake than scientists.

The grant money that scientists get is pretty pitiful in comparison; nobody chooses the fairly austere and intensely busy years that an academic scientist spends in grad school and on the tenure track to get rich. It is more of a 'calling' profession that people choose for non-monetary reasons just as some select the health care or education fields or become poor outdoor guides rather than rich bankers. Most academic researchers I know in the earth sciences have a specialty that they apply to several different research problems, and I don't know any hitched to a single topic or a grant 'gravy train' as so many climate change skeptics suggest is typical of science.

Scientists are human and once can dig up examples or rivalry, pettiness, and grudging credit to colleagues; egos can get in the way of some people's best work. But by and large they are a group driven by a simple quest for truth. Everything that I know about the field from my education does not square with the depiction of scientists as a colluding gang of grant-seekers plotting a vast scientific-political global warming conspiracy. That story may sell books or sound good 30 seconds at a time from pundits, but it does not ring true. The follow-the-money arguments tell us instead to look more closely at BIG fossil fuel businesses and vested interets, and their lobbyists.

There are some open questions to fill in details about climate change, such as the exact role of sunspots, clouds, etc. Those questions of detail don't seem to change the massive evidence piling up more each day of retreating glaciers, melting permafrost, earlier springs, forest blights, animal and disease movements, that all tell us the earth is warming and at an atypically fast rate.
Can rural America hold the world to ransom? 8:51pm on 30 Oct 2009 Based on time spent at a construction job in Charlestown, and camping or visiting Morgantown, Seneca Rocks, Blackwater Falls, Canaan Valley and some points near the Appalachian Trail along the VA border, I'd have to say WV is a diverse and beautiful state with a lot more human and natural potential than trading away your ridgetops and streams for Big Coal.

Big Coal lobbied and mine safety standards were relaxed, we read of how dusty conveyors could be placed in ventilation shafts (a blowtorch ready to light up a mine fire). At least mountain-topping keeps workers safer above ground, but it lowers the skyline, removes the stabilizing forest, and fills headwater creeks with mine tailings. That puts fishing, hunitng and WV wild & scenic rivers at risk. Big Coal never lobbied for safe coal, just for cheap coal, and lower safety costs keep coal cheap and more widely used, and mountain-topping is a cheap production method. Since mile-long trains carry Wyoming coal all across the USA even as far as the east coast, there must be a need to lower WV coal prices to compete.

Big Coal created the "clean coal" ads, and the phrase is much more mature as a marketing term than as a proven set of technologies, even though there are several Federally-funded coal research centers (yes, our evil national government is sepnding a lot of tax dollars to help the coal industry). Acid rain is no myth, even natural gas fired turbines need scrubbers to remove the NOX created from the high combustion temperatures. Coal fired plants need the scrubbers for the NOX and also for the sulfur that can be naturally present in the coal. Other filters can catch the fly ash particulates. Non-particulate emissions that are not caught can include natural radioactive materials and mercury or other harmful metals. All those things are in coal because the ancient, oxygen-poor swamps in which coal formed worked just like modern wetlands: they helped clean almost all the "pollutants" out of the water that flowed through them. So coal contains metal sulfides, and other elements that can pollute, aside from any carbon issues.

There are more ways being developed to burn coal more cleanly, fludized beds, scrubbers, etc. and there may be ways to catch the CO2 as well in the future. Maybe gasifying coal will become the best use. But these all tack on cost to using coal. At some point, solar wind natural gas and so on are simply cheaper genreating methods when all costs are added up. At some point maybe even nuclear power looks better.

I hope that farsighted leaders give West Virginians new opportunities that honor a hard working and independent heritage. I also hope that the short term payoff of mountain top mining doesn't hurt the long term opportunities for the state.
Why 'adolescent America' has to grow up 11:09pm on 28 Oct 2009 #351 and Maria

I agree with you, and in a wider sense than you mention. All of these are more accessible and graphic than ever: "porn porn" "horror porn" "violence porn" "crime porn" "animal cruelty porn" etc. For example, in pop movie culture, what was once suggested in the shadows or shown indirectly by way a face's reaction is now dissected in slow motion exaggerated detail... let alone changes in other media.

Joseph Conrad had a character say that restraint is the ulimate hallmark of civilization. We are losing our restraint in these areas.
Why 'adolescent America' has to grow up 1:27pm on 28 Oct 2009 #305, while the good professor is cut from conservative cloth, he did not seem to be completely dyed-in-the-wool. I read some nuggets in his article about the need for innovation and technology with respect to economic power, that don't seem too far off from Obama's education and green energy priorities.
Why 'adolescent America' has to grow up 6:20pm on 27 Oct 2009 Kurth is an interesting fellow and must have what it takes to survive as a resident conservative at Swarthmore College (which has been rated America's #1 liberal arts school, has a good engineering program as well, and is a green and socially conscious institution in what has been a liberal and tolerant borough for generations).

His "Coming to Order" article is still topical for the Afghanistan decisions...

I read the subtext of most of these 'where are we going' commentaries as a caution against short term thinking in business, and in personal goals like education, as the factor working against our continued success.
Why 'adolescent America' has to grow up 06:51am on 27 Oct 2009 # 42, 50, 61, 72, 85, 87: I enjoyed all your posts and agree with much that you said.

In this reply I'll try to avoid the adolescent traits of 'knowing it all' and meeting instruction with defensiveness... We could do better about those as a nation, too, and we need to temper the expectations of instant gratification that feed our consumerism and debt.

But we shouldn't lose some other youthful traits, here are a few that serve us well:

improvisation - I think the secret of American music, mentioned by some as our great export for generations, and to innovation and invention, is improvisation, a blend of proficient skill or knowledge with the freeing imagination and optimism of youth.

concentration - if the intense focus of play can be brought to our growth as much as to our hobbies, we can imitate the likes of Abe Lincoln's fireside reading self-education or George Washington's cultivation of extraordinary restraint and probity.

fairness - kids have high expectations of a level playing field and don't abide cheaters. This childhood trait is wiser than the jaded acceptance that replaces idealism in some. It's why most of us are law-abiding and tax-paying, and why we respect the fruits of effort more than privilege...
A prize deserved? 08:00am on 11 Oct 2009 Well I am proud that another American has been awarded the Nobel honor, even if the basis is partly aspirational. The naysayers who celebrate the Olympic decision but decry this one don't care if America is hurt by their visceral opposition to President Obama.

This prize in part recognizes the oft-missing phrase from the quote by the great American Stephen Decatur, the aspirational "America, may she always be in the right..." that preceded the typically repeated "...but she is my country, right or wrong!" The world is recognizing someone who is working hard to keep America in the right, and lead us to live up to the aspirations and expectations of a great democracy.

Three past U.S. presidents deserved the prize too: T.R. for his efforts on the global stage and the end of the Russo-Japanese war, despite his belief in a foreign policy based in part on the "White Man's Burden" idea of childlike colonial subjects not ready for self government; Wilson for his actions (even if reluctant) to end the war and more importantly to build a peace, despite his political style which led to self-destructive failure for his initiatives back in the USA; and Carter for leading the mideast peace between Egypt and Isreal that won Begin and Sadat the prize in 1978, before assasination repaid their brave efforts.

Carter has been criticized by some of the keyboard "hawks" here. In addition to Isreal-Egypt peace he funded development of and deployed the cruise missile, which made every increasingly vulnerable American bomber into a new multi-target 'standoff' weapon. I would argue this led to more Soviet military spending, on air defense upgrades, than "Star Wars" SDI ever did - so maybe some of that "Reagan forced the USSR to overspend on defense" mythos should transfer to Carter. Carter also pursued energy independence in his one term. He got the gist of his "malaise" speech right: although belittled now, in a sense he was warning of upcoming outcomes: the S&L scandal, the rise of consumerism (echoed by Solzhenitsyn), and of outsourcing and the fall of American branding and manufacturing. Carter was by no means perfect as president or since, but he gets treated with far more charicature than a nuclear navy officer and man of all his other accomplishments deserves.
Obama defends climate change record 07:28am on 01 Oct 2009 Climate Change was coined as a euphemism for Global Warming by right/conservative think tanks at least 3 years ago, well before the election. I think that Obama is only using the term to garner a few more votes in Congress. He did not coin it. Opponents of the idea of 'anthropogenic global warming' brought 'climate change' into use in an effort to separate the issue from man-made effects.
Obama defends climate change record 07:26am on 28 Sep 2009 74 - I guess you prefer the good old days when an industrial river might even catch fire, when soot damaged lungs and acid rain damaged forests, when gas contained lead so that all our kids inhaled and ingested more, and so on, back before those meddling environmentalists.

Now we need to reckon with a nationwide epidemic of obesity and diabetes among other new facts that have cropped up since those good old days. There is precious little actual sugar (in the sense that our parents knew) to be taxed in our national diet now, but there is plenty of high-fructose corn syrup and corn products from powerful, lobbying agricultural interests. Maybe you can point out where the Constitution protects the rights to profliglacy or to self-destruction at great expense to others.

Our short-sighted tax policy in general is exemplified by the about 20-year plateau in Federal gasoline taxes, the lowest among industrial nations, held at 18 cents per gallon over all that time while inflation has roughly tripled. That's why we don't have federal road and transportation funds to keep up with new infrastructure needs and repairs, because most Americans can be "spun" into opposing taxes even for essential services and capital projects in the nation's best interest.

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