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manysummits

Listed below are comments made by manysummits between Friday, 20th November 2009 and Thursday, 26th November 2009.

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Copenhagen Countdown: 17 days 11:34am on 26 Nov 2009 To extragrumpymike2 #363:

You can disagree all you want - it's still a free country.

However, the theoretical physicist Klaus Lackner, whose original idea is CO2 air-capture, thinks otherwise.

Apparently the actual practical costs of CO2 removal from the air, as opposed to the removal from a concentrated source, such as a flue stack, are not significantly different. Initially skeptical, as are you, Wallace Broecker soon changed his mind.

Wallace Broecker is one of our greatest scientists, so I suggest you defer criticism until you appraise yourself of all of the facts.

On top of all of that, you seem blissfully unaware that CO2 levels will not be dropping back down to acceptable levels withour direct human intervention. Again - if you are to comment realistically on this subject, you will need to read more from the scientific literature.

Sorry in advance to be so short and direct, but here's why:

The denial campaign is just that. I understand them and their reasons for the spamming of this site, on this blog.

But for you, if you are not a denialist campaigner in disguise - I will expect a thorough committment to the study of climate science - as a commentator - not as a professional.

The professionals are publishing, virtually every day now, and unless you believe in a conspiracy amongst the world scientific community, the message is phenomenally clear.

We either clean up our act or Nature will do it for us.

- Manysummits -

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/news/sections/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsLang=en&newsId=20080501005464
Copenhagen Countdown: 17 days 11:34pm on 25 Nov 2009 To rossglory #326:

"maybe that's a big part of the negativety around the subject."
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Yes, maybe. In fact - it probably is.

You know, Wallace Broecker is a practical man, as well as a big thinker. It's why I bought his book, "Fixing Climate."

I simply admire the man and his sometimes unorthodox ways.

The air-capture device wasn't his 'original idea,' but he seems to know a good thing when he sees it, and is willing to change his mind in the face of new information, a trait I find extremely useful in the mountains!

Think of these CO2 air-capture 'trees' springing up. At first a novelty - then the dawning realization - why are we burning fossil fuels and then having to suck it back out of the air?

Of course I am no seer, but I like to think I can occassionaly know a good thing when I see it, and to date - this is the best idea I've seen.

It's at least worth a try. Human nature, politics and public opinion being something of a 'deterministic non-linear dynamic', i.e., chaotic, a seemingly small initial condition [CO2 air-capture trees], might have a drastically non-linear response curve.
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Ghostofsichuan brings up the idea of full-spectrum accounting in his post #290:

"The costs for fossil fuels is much higher when you look at the impacts on society ,it is just that the public pays for all of this and not the companies. If proper costs assoicated with fossil fuels were presented the alternatives would be highly competitive and more likely cheaper."

This is what I am reading in Lester Brown's "Plan B 4.0."

Surely this is something that could be brought up in Copenhagen, in lieu of an agreement?

Full cost accounting - for nuclear reactors, for air-pollution, for the mining of non-remewable fossil water reservoirs, etc etc...

This would include decommissioning, clean up, and some means of measuring the cost in public health, medical bills, and on and on.

We can do this - why not do it now, this December, at Copenhagen?

The older I get, the more I think and see, the more phenomenal is the absolute dysfunction I see around me.

It is tempting to simply say that it is me that is crazy, then, as simon-swede's last lighthearted link assures us, all the glaciers would simply stop melting, and go back where they belong!!

- Manysummits -
Copenhagen Countdown: 17 days 11:47am on 25 Nov 2009 To simon-swede #257:

Yes, I agree with 'rossglory.'

A refreshing post - a bit of light!

I see that two degrees C appears to be gaining status as a benchmark - GOOD!

That the current proposals for emission cutbacks are perceived as inadequate - AGREE!

And that the USA and China must come on-side - HOPEFULLY!
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More and more I like the idea of CO2 air-capture devices, for several reasons:

- They will work, and are democratic, in that wherever they are built they produce dividends for all of humanity.

- Building them gives us all something positive to do, which the human being prefers over cutting back.

- The building of them in the millions can be done by most countries, and can be subsidized through many levels of government, from village to the United Nations. This is a business - and does not appear to contravene any of the laws of business and commerce, of politics, or of human nature.

- They will be a visible symbol of terraforming, and of the new imperative in the twenty-first century - survival by conforming to the laws of Nature, rather than trampling them underfoot.

Your University could for example order one, once the prototype is ready - my city could do the same - Warren Buffet could put one in his back yard - China could erect one in Tiannemen Square - Russia could have one outside the Kremlin - India one close to the Taj Mahal, or the Golden Temple - and one of course for the National Mall in Washington DC, etc...

It could end up a party of CO2 Trees. Castel Gondolpho in Italy, 'wunarik's village in Africa, an island paradise in Palau, an oilfield in Saskatchewan - on a farmer's field... interspersed amongst the wind farm plantations and solar arrays of the future...

In My Back Yard - PLEASE?

- Manysummits -
Copenhagen Countdown: 17 days 00:58am on 25 Nov 2009 To extragrumpymike2 #223:

It is sounding like we share a lot in common. I've always wanted to hoist sail and just go.

As for geoengineering - I think any of the fancy ideas are downright dangerous and foolhardy.

But there is one terraforming project we will have to implement if I am reading the science correctly:

We are going to need to bring CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere down below 350 ppmv, and we can start now - with direct air-capture devices. No matter where these are used, the benefits accrue to everyone on Earth. We might even be able to use the retrieved CO2 usefully, rather than simply sequester it.

"After Copenhagen":

In my mind, Copenhagen is the beginning of the end of our planetary childhood. I expect many world leaders to be present, and again, if I am reading the science correctly, this is a problem which will very soon dominate world politics.

With luck, and the internet, it might begin to dominate humanity's thinking too.

I and davblo2 and jr4412, who wrote the Mayday Declaration are acutely aware of the 'many other' problems you refer to in the world today.

All need solving - but where to begin?

Well, the UN has already begun, on all fronts.

But the UN is an unwieldy institution at present, and dominated by 'business as usual' interests, for they have all the money and military clout.

Realistically, I think only a truly clear and present danger to all of humanity will galvanize our leaders - after the public has been galvanized. That seems not to contradict the lessons of history and of human nature.

Our only new tool is the internet. I have hopes there.

You know, we all have to cope with the world as it is, individually and at larger scales. Some of us sail, or climb mountains, or imbibe the various entertainments which transport us to better places - temporarily.

In the mountains, the trip back down was always psychologically down too - at least for me - requiring even greater concentration and care. Physical tiredness, and psychological downness - they are nearly the same thing.

The remedies are well known - rest, then await the spontaneous return of the longing for action - Yin and Yang - positive and negative - up and down - always.

Soul-surfing on planet Earth.

- Manysummits -
Copenhagen Countdown: 17 days 00:34am on 25 Nov 2009 To ghostofsichuan #204:

Always a pleasure to hear from yorself, and thank you for the book recommendation.

I hope you are well, and have caught a fish or two.

- Manysummits -
Copenhagen Countdown: 17 days 11:51am on 24 Nov 2009 To extragrumpymike2 #144:

Sorry if I offended you mike.

I have this deep-rooted suspicion of anyone even remotely seeming to sit on the fence, and I shouldn't have taken a cheap shot at your boat.

We (my family) are and have been living an alternative lifestyle, manifestly without yachts, and even the mountains are rare these days. As such, I light up at times - I'm far from perfect.

I think sometimes I've seen too much of the world of man, and like Lao-Tse, the feeling comes over me to get on my mule and ride out-there, beyong the wall of human avarice and stupidity.

But as John Steinbeck once pointed out - one cannot run away, for you take your human traits with you wherever you go.

I sometimes think I'm trying to convince somebody, but in the final analysis, I believe it's just communication that I seek. The 'just' may be inappropriate, for when three of us wrote the Mayday Declaration, that was the principal objective - to simply communicate the facts of the state of the planet to the world population.

An extravagant amount of hubris there - replicated in many of the would be creative saviors who are popping up left and right these days.

So I'm returning slowly to my roots - the love of action in the outdoors.

Here is something Aldous Huxley wrote in his groundbreaking "Doors of Perception", and in his introduction to the "Bhagavad Gita":
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"Literary or scientific, liberal or specialist, all our education is predominantly verbal and therefore fails to accomplish what it is supposed to do. Instead of transforming children into fully developed adults, it turns out students of the natural sciences who are completely unaware of Nature as the primary fact of experience, it inflicts upon the world students of the Humanities who know nothing of humanity, their own or anyone else's."

"...the glory and the wonder of pure existence belong to another order, beyond the power of even the highest art to express."

"Contemplation is the end, action the means." (Intro - Bhagavad Gita)
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In summary - I blog as it is a means of self-expression, and my normal means of self-expression - climbing - is denied me these days.

Any port in a storm!

But of course that is only partly the truth. The problem, as always, is conveying what you mean in limited space and time.

- Manysummits -
Copenhagen Countdown: 17 days 11:58am on 23 Nov 2009 To 'ghostofsichuan' #19:

"The wise silverbacks are chased away by the younger males for sex and power. Not much has changed."
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Priceless!

And that's why I've got a book coming from the library, "A Separate Reality," by Carlos Castenada. A controversial author, this book purports to document the teachings of a 'Yaqui' healer and 'man of knowledge, from the Mexican Sonoran desert, just opposite Baja California. The Jesuits are involved, colonial greed etc..., and it is an area of the world (the southwest deserts and mountains) that I have visited repeatedly, and continues to fascinate.

The Yaqui are semi-legendary in my mind, like the Apache, but they were corn and bean farmers, and thus territorial, protecting their rare bit of water aroung the 'Rio Yaqui' (river).

There is another aspect of interest here, and peripheraly to Copenhagen, although few will agree.

The 'healer's prediliction, or way of knowing, was through the medium of hallucinogenic drugs - peyote (mescalin), datura (Jimson Weed), and mushrooms.

I have another book, "The Doors of Perception", by Aldous Huxley, about his experimental use of mescalin, which bears heavily on my researches into life and its quality, especially as regards mountaineering.

Apparently, the breakdown products of adrenaline, such as adrenochrome, are similar to mescalin, and produce somewhat analagous symptoms, or feelings.

Thus the 'way of knowing' desribed by Carlos Castenada in the Yaqui healer may be only one way of knowing. Sacred dancing is another, according to the Yaqui healer, and there are others.

I think devotion to the climbing of mountains is one of them.

Truly it is too much to expect the Copenhagen delegates to take up climbing, or peyote - or is it?

- Manysummits, beside the Canadian Rockies -
Copenhagen Countdown: 17 days 9:16pm on 20 Nov 2009 To extragrumpymike2 #14:

I wish it were true, but I don't think it is so - "that we need do nothing."

I see the same inertia that ghostofsichuan does, and a similar level of corruption.

I am a student of history, and the eunuchs really are in charge.

I think it was circa 1431 that the Chinese Imperial Fleet was recalled by the eunuchs themselves, the Emperor having died, and were this not to have happened, the world would be a very different place today.

This is akin to deterministic non-linear dynamics, also known as chaos theory, where a system can be extraordinarily sensitive to initial conditions.

The system saw the threat in John F. Kennedy and his brother Bobby, and eliminated both of them. The bad guys have done nothing but consolidate their power ever since.

You doubt this - find it incredulous!

Think again - learn - read the revisionist history of Ronald Wright and other authors like him.

- "Stolen Continents"
- "A Short History of Progress"
- "What is America"

Read "The Corporation", by the law professor Joel Bakan.

I was once a small businessman, and I know what it is to truly compete for business in the marketplace.

I was once a stockbroker, and I know what insider-trading is all about.

Read "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man", by Perkins.

I could go on and on, and like Climate Science, the converted need not be reconverted, and as for the many, they seldom read.

Everyone knows this, including those in charge.

You have mentioned that you yourself don't know about climate science, not being a specialist.

Then how will you decide who is right and who is wrong? Does that make you incapable of decision?

Did you view the graphs from the World Glacier Monitoring Service posted in #14?

Or the temperature data from GISS?

How is one to decide on the one hand that the bad guys are in charge - a conspiracy of the mega-rich and greedy, and then decide that there is no conspiracy of the scientific community?

How?

Our society in the Western World is so cynical that half don't even vote - because they know the game is rigged.

The really stupid ones may be the ones who vote - thinking to change a corrupt system.

I left to climb mountains - that's how I felt.

I blog now because I have a son.

But we are raising him like an Apache because of the world he will inheirit, while fence-sitters play with their yachts.

- Manysummits -
Copenhagen Countdown: 17 days 7:32pm on 20 Nov 2009 I'm off work today, having just been to the dentist - a consequence of forgetting how to eat properly. Since there appear to be a rather large number of fully employed and highly paid dentists - I presume I am not the only forgetful one.

Hence all the blogs on what is in Calgary, a Friday morning.

Here's a guess:

The number of man-made global warming bloggers on the last blog, the impending Copenhagen Conference, the difficulties it is encountering, the hacking of the 'Hadley Centre' climate science facility, etc..., all these smack of an increasingly desperate 'business as usual' assault.

That would be a good thing.

It is my experience that only necessity is truly effective in bringing people together in a concerted and coherent way.

That necessity is building to a critical point as we blog, in my opinion.

Sir Ernest Shackleton may be still familiar to many in the UK and around the world. (Antarctic Explorer)

Perhaps his family motto will aid us, and his example:

'By Endurance We Conquer'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Shackleton

- Manysummits -
Copenhagen Countdown: 17 days 7:19pm on 20 Nov 2009 \\\ My report on the book "Worldshift 2012", by Ervin Laszlo, 2009 ///

Not good.

In pandering to the hype about the Mayan Long Count and the upcoming December 21, 2012 date, I think Ervin Laszlo has lost it.

That's my opinion.

I bought the book because of the foreward by Mikhail Gorbachev, and now I am puzzled by why he gave his name to this 'handbook?'

I presume that in the period preceeding perceived disastrous change, we are seeing the grasping at straws syndrome.

How to keep one's balance in difficult and trying times will soon be the devotion of many, I suspect.

- Manysummits -

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