Marmar wants to outlaw fossil fuels; our guest Buzz chimes in

[BannedFromDU]

marmar (66,960 posts)

The Only Solution to Climate Change — Outlaw Fossil Fuel Production

By Gaius Publius, a professional writer living on the West Coast of the United States and frequent contributor to DownWithTyranny, digby, Truthout, Americablog, and Naked Capitalism. Follow him on Twitter @Gaius_Publius, Tumblr and Facebook. This piece first appeared at Down With Tyranny.

I once had the opportunity to speak one-on-one with one of our leading progressive politicians, someone who is on the right side of everything I care about, including climate change. As we were discussing solutions to the climate problem, I mentioned the carbon industry and said, “You realize, fixing the climate crisis means we have to kill the carbon industry, right?”

She (or he) stopped, thought, then said (paraphrasing): “Huh. You know, I think you’re right.”

Why do I bring this up? Because this person, who’s right about everything I want her (or him) to be right about, hadn’t thought through the climate problem to the obvious solution. If you don’t want it burned, you can’t dig it up. That means, we have to kill the industry. There’s just no other choice.

The problem we seem to be facing is this: The industry gets that, and they’re fighting back. But most people who care about climate don’t. So we’re stuck, year after year, with more of this:



Do We Really Have to Impoverish the Whole Industry?

Yes. If we don’t make them poor — or make them switch to a completely different business — they’ll make us extinct, or at least hunter-gatherers again, with only the odd pocket of “civilized” (agricultural, settled) humans in the odd, eco-friendly location left to show for everything we’ve done with our time on earth. ....................(more)

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/06/gaius-publius-the-only-solution-to-climate-change-outlaw-fossil-fuel-production.html

Nothing to see here...just the usual bullshit from someone certain we'd all be better off if we walked around with knapsacks all day, still...

Romulox (24,338 posts)

3. The world economy is like a stand off. You can't "fix" it by unilaterally disarming.

Any oil we don't burn will be burnt by China, India, for example.




Response to Romulox (Reply #3)



Buzz Clik (32,511 posts)
5. That's the rightwing mantra, and it's crap.

Carbon emissions are global. If we cut back, we help.




Response to Buzz Clik (Reply #5)



Romulox (24,338 posts)

8. It's observable reality. Stomping one's feet and namecalling won't change it. nt


Response to Romulox (Reply #8)



Buzz Clik (32,511 posts)
9. No one called anyone a name. Poor thing. As for your espousing rightwing views:

Your notion has been stripped clean of any substance a thousand times before. Cling to it if you please. You have lots of company.

     Now we can include our interloper (who has plenty of time post on the DUmp, but no time to account for himself here) among those who want to destroy the entire world economy by "outlawing" fossil fuel. Or, at least he wants to unilaterally disarm.

     Yeah, Buzz. Even Romulox knows you're full of shit. Guess what, DUmmy? For you to have your Johnny Appleseed fantasies to come true, millions of Americans would lose their jobs forever. Outlaw fossil fuels? OK...99.9% of the cars on the road become worthless and useless. People who design, build, and service them lose their jobs. Oil industry, gone. You think 2008 was bad? Try forcing people to live your liberal fantasy bullshit dream. And now, with some of the oppo research in our pocket, it would appear that you would in some measure be biting the hand that feeds you.

     He goes on:

Buzz Clik (32,511 posts)

4. Imagine a world without fossil fuels.

Start by turning off your computer. (But you get to leave yours on, I suppose. Right out of the Al Gore textbook)

In the original Kyoto Protocols, they simply wanted to roll back CO2 levels to 15-20 years previous. Not eliminate the carbon industry.

I am a HUGE advocate for controlling human contributions to climate change, but eliminating the "carbon industry" borders on totally insane and is unnecessary.  (Everything in the world...EVERYTHING...makes money for someone, and therefore makes a living for someone. Including whatever bullshit you do that most of us could live without but which you are sure we'd die without.

     Know how you can help more than merely turning off your computer, Buzz? Turn YOURSELF off. Step in front of a train.

[DumbAss Tanker]

It would require a mass near-extinction of humans world-wide to work.  People with no employment, which would be damn' near everybody but crop, corn and sugar farmers and ag machinery and wind turbine manufacturers, still need to eat, have a place to live, and stay warm.  The remaining population fragment would have to consolidate into small towns, though on the plus side, I suppose it would bring back railroad spur lines to those small towns, since there would be no other feasible way to distribute the minimum food rations for the survivors.  None of the larger settlements could be in highly marginal lands dependent on outside resources, such as most of the Southwest, particularly southern California.

[67 Rover]

Excellent idea, time to get in on the ground floor of buggy whip stocks. 

[BannedFromDU]

Excellent idea, time to get in on the ground floor of buggy whip stocks. 

     They always claim conservatives are the ones wanting to go back to 1910, too.

[thundley4]

Without fossil fuels to run mining equipment and run the mills that produce the materials need for wind and solar power, the DUmmies would die quickly.

Without fossil fuels to run farm equipment and processing plants, billions would die.

[FiddyBeowulf]

     They always claim conservatives are the ones wanting to go back to 1910, too.

Due to their love affair with trains I would say they want to go back to about 1880.

[txradioguy]

uzz Clik (32,511 posts)

4. Imagine a world without fossil fuels.

This world has been there before doofus.

It was known as the Stone Age.


Why the hell must DUmmies insist on being such Luddites?

[BannedFromDU]

This world has been there before doofus.

It was known as the Stone Age.


Why the hell must DUmmies insist on being such Luddites?

     But that's the rub - they are convinced that solar and wind power are sufficient to turn the world into the one they see in science fiction movies. Naturally, they don't want any of the panels or turbines in THEIR backyard, and they want to claim 110% of all land in the US to devote to open space and to give back to the Indians, but still. They think prices are high now - just wait until they want to use electricity to make electricity.

[Movie buff- The Sequel]

" they’ll make us extinct, or at least hunter-gatherers again, with only the odd pocket of “civilized” (agricultural, settled) humans in the odd, eco-friendly location."

Actually, it's the liberal eco- freaks who want us to become hunter- gatherers again (Minus the "Hunter" part; They maintain that hunting "Makes Gaia cry" or something, and demand that all Americans be uber- vegans like them), they believe that agriculture and permanent settlements "Rape the planet."

     Now we can include our interloper (who has plenty of time post on the DUmp, but no time to account for himself here) among those who want to destroy the entire world economy by "outlawing" fossil fuel. Or, at least he wants to unilaterally disarm.

     Yeah, Buzz. Even Romulox knows you're full of shit. Guess what, DUmmy? For you to have your Johnny Appleseed fantasies to come true, millions of Americans would lose their jobs forever. Outlaw fossil fuels? OK...99.9% of the cars on the road become worthless and useless. People who design, build, and service them lose their jobs. Oil industry, gone. You think 2008 was bad? Try forcing people to live your liberal fantasy bullshit dream. And now, with some of the oppo research in our pocket, it would appear that you would in some measure be biting the hand that feeds you.

It would be way worse than just that, in the broader sense.
Start by considering all the non- auto products that use fossil fuels: Boats (And, by extension, equipment that is normally associated with boats, such as life jackets and flares), motorized yard tools (Chainsaws, lawnmowers, etc.), and so on. All their industries would go bankrupt too.
Then, all those millions if not tens of millions of Americans left unemployed would thus have less income to spend in other ways, from restaurants to shopping centers to theme parks to hotels to museums to movie theaters and so on. Most of those businesses would thus go bankrupt as well due to how much income they'd be losing. Then, all those employees would have less income to spend in the remaining businesses, and so on.
In summary, a near complete, almost certainly permanent collapse of the US economy and the worst/ highest unemployment rate of any nation in recorded history, all so you liberal tofu- and- granola eco- freaks could have your demented little "Social experiment."

[Duke Nukum]

I'm all for outlawing the use of fossil fuels for liberals and Obama supporters. And that includes prohibiting the use of all secondary petroleum products.

[txradioguy]

     But that's the rub - they are convinced that solar and wind power are sufficient to turn the world into the one they see in science fiction movies. Naturally, they don't want any of the panels or turbines in THEIR backyard, and they want to claim 110% of all land in the US to devote to open space and to give back to the Indians, but still. They think prices are high now - just wait until they want to use electricity to make electricity.

I'm living in a country trying to do that and it's not working too well.  Germany has turned off almost all of it's 22 Nuclear Power plants.  They believe they can replace the power generated by those plants with wind and solar.

All it's done is blight the countryside with huge ugly windmills as far as the eye can see and farmers fields that once grew crops to feed the country are being replaced with acres of solar panels.

That don't work too well on cloudy days ( of which there are a LOT of here) or when they are covered in 6 inches of snow.

Oh and its increased the price of electricity too.

The DUmmies are living in a fantasy world.

[txradioguy]

Here Dummies...choke on some Carlin knowledge.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjmtSkl53h4[/youtube]

[GOBUCKS]

just wait until they want to use electricity to make electricity.

That's sort of like how they use oil to make ethanol from corn to replace oil.

It's a great democrat idea that raises the price of both corn and gasoline, and causes more oil to be consumed.

By the way, is everyone enjoying their dim, four-dollar, democrat 60W light bulbs?

So much better than those old technology fifty-cent incandescent bulbs.

[SVPete]

    Now we can include our interloper (who has plenty of time post on the DUmp, but no time to account for himself here) among those who want to destroy the entire world economy by "outlawing" fossil fuel. Or, at least he wants to unilaterally disarm.

     Yeah, Buzz. Even Romulox knows you're full of shit. Guess what, DUmmy? For you to have your Johnny Appleseed fantasies to come true, millions of Americans would lose their jobs forever. Outlaw fossil fuels? OK...99.9% of the cars on the road become worthless and useless. People who design, build, and service them lose their jobs. Oil industry, gone. You think 2008 was bad? Try forcing people to live your liberal fantasy bullshit dream. And now, with some of the oppo research in our pocket, it would appear that you would in some measure be biting the hand that feeds you.
...
     Know how you can help more than merely turning off your computer, Buzz? Turn YOURSELF off. Step in front of a train.

Strange ... I thought I saw a pic recently of Buzz at some ruins somewhere in the Med area. Did he practice his preachments by swimming and walking to get there?

If you want to know what Libs and Progs really believe, watch what they do, rather than listening to their blather.

[Carl]

The scary thing is that is exactly what the cult is pushing for with the UN driving the bus.

[thundley4]

By the way, is everyone enjoying their dim, four-dollar, democrat 60W light bulbs?

So much better than those old technology fifty-cent incandescent bulbs.

Almost all of our lamps are three-way types. You can still buy incandescent three-way bulbs all the way up to 200 watts or more. These bulbs cost more than the old 100 watt ones did, but they are cheaper that the fluorescent, LED, or halogen bulbs.

[txradioguy]

Those fluorescent, LED and halogen bulbs are crap.

We are constantly having to replace them in our house here in Germany.  They've got a lifespan of about six months before they start burning out and we have to go to the Germany stores to buy them (at German prices) because the while the PX sells them...they only sell the 110w version for the on post housing.

[thundley4]

Those fluorescent, LED and halogen bulbs are crap.

We are constantly having to replace them in our house here in Germany.  They've got a lifespan of about six months before they start burning out and we have to go to the Germany stores to buy them (at German prices) because the while the PX sells them...they only sell the 110w version for the on post housing.

Do they have any incandescent bulbs there?  I remember a couple of years ago, some European company was selling incandescent bulbs as "heating" devices. 

[txradioguy]

Do they have any incandescent bulbs there?  I remember a couple of years ago, some European company was selling incandescent bulbs as "heating" devices. 

Nope not one to be found anywhere that I've seen.

[tanstaafl]

I'm kind of torn on this issue.

Hunting and fishing everyday, grilling every night, but no more Formula One or NASCAR racing.

If the DUmmies really think it's just a matter of pulling the plug on the coal and oil companies, they're NUTS!

[GOBUCKS]

If the DUmmies really think it's just a matter of pulling the plug on the coal and oil companies, they're NUTS!

They do, and they are.

[jukin]

For a few months after that the only carbon emissions would be out of the end of a barrel.  Then we could go back to modern society.

[thundley4]

For a few months after that the only carbon emissions would be out of the end of a barrel.  Then we could go back to modern society.

There would be a lot from burning bodies, too. I'm not wasting the effort to bury any damned DUmmie.

[67 Rover]

There would be a lot from burning bodies, too. I'm not wasting the effort to bury any damned DUmmie.

Burning would be a waste, we could use the carcases to grease up the bearings and other general lubrication until we get the oil industry back on it's feet. 

[BlueStateSaint]

There would be a lot from burning bodies, too. I'm not wasting the effort to bury any damned DUmmie.

You want to burn them?  You get to file the environmental impact statement NOW.