A bi-monthly open thread related to climate solutions.
PS. New year, new moderation policy. Please be substantive – sniping, insults, and tedious repetition will just be culled. We want to maintain a civil and productive discourse here, but the comment threads may need to be re-evaluated if that doesn’t happen.
BPL misinterprets “totalitarianism” again!
Really? You think the Israeli Kibutz Communist system was harder on the environment than, say the Israeli capitalist system?
Please stop taking totalitarian pretenders as the best and brightest example of the economic systems they pretended to even remotely follow. Or be fair by limiting your capitalist example to Nazi Germany. As you know, Capitalists effed the entire globe.
Get real, dude. Tell us why Israel kibbutz sucks as an example of communism. Cuz up to now you have never given a single phrase, let alone a full sentence that discusses “communism”.
Not.
One
Phrase.
Hint: whine about “scaling”.
Then I’ll ponder about Native American bands forming tribes forming Nations.
And that’s hundreds of years obsolete! You think that you and I together couldn’t design a grand Communist system, given all the previous Giants we were blessed with?
There. I saved us both some time.
Richard The Weaver. One reason Israels collectively owned and managed kibbutz work quite well might be the great sense of unity of purpose in Israel due to 1)years of persecution and attacks, and 2)the great religious zeal in the country, and the sense of purpose it gives. With that you can make just about any socio- economic system work.
I’m not convinced it means such a collectivist system would scale up successfully in other cultures. Experience suggests it won’t. Most modern intentional / alternative communities with collective structures fail after a few years. I actually nearly joined one when quite young. The simple living collectivist communities that seem to succeed long term often have strong religious convictions. The Quakers (?).
I’ve generally lost faith in the whole collectivist idea as far as modern societies go. The exception is basic infrastructure like water supply, and possibly public health systems. Its possible to make collectivist entities work ok within a capitalist / private ownership whole. History shows this. But making an entirely collectivist system work for a modern technology based society appears to be quite challenging.
I agree. Collectives scale even worse than capitalism. Two wrongs make a requirement for a new system.
RtW: BPL misinterprets “totalitarianism” again! . . . Really? You think the Israeli Kibutz Communist system was harder on the environment than, say the Israeli capitalist system? . . . Please stop taking totalitarian pretenders as the best and brightest example of the economic systems they pretended to even remotely follow. Or be fair by limiting your capitalist example to Nazi Germany. As you know, Capitalists effed the entire globe. . . . Get real, dude. Tell us why Israel kibbutz sucks as an example of communism. Cuz up to now you have never given a single phrase, let alone a full sentence that discusses “communism”. . . . Not. . . . One . . . Phrase.
BPL: What a bullshit example.
Communism means the STATE owns the means of production, the state being run by a one-party “dictatorship of the proletariat.” Like we actually had in Communist Russia and China and still have in North Korea. It is not a kibbutz, where a small collective owns things but is not the state and is not a one-party dictatorship. Everybody knows damn well what communism means in practice, but people like Richard like to defend a kind of “ideal” communism which never really existed.
No. I don’t defend “communism”. It sucks.
And I don’t defend “capitalism”. It sucks.
Really, BPL, have you internalized any of my posts?
Again, I rip what you call “Capitalism” into two parts:
“”Laborism”, which is a dandy foundation, and
“Capitalism”, which used to have good value back when “capital” was durable, based on physicality: gold and silver.
But now that “capital” is based on Faith, physical capital sucks. It is as much an anchor to yesterday as a springboard to tomorrow.
XRRC: at the oligarchs getting rich off it. In fact, the only person so far presumed to be worthy of any law enforcement scrutiny is not any of the billionaires avoiding taxes, but the whistle-blowing source of the IRS leak.
RtW: and the poor. Law enforcement focuses almost entirely on piddly stuff like a few hundred not-too-bright ditch diggers claiming a credit improperly, thus DEFRAUDING! the treasury of a couple hundred bucks each. Of course, the same effort could nab someone who deliberately pocketed hundreds of thousands with full knowledge that he/she was being an untruthful criminal (whose only potential downside would be stealing slightly less if some IRS flunky gets uppity).
The IRS and all law enforcement should focus on white collar crime. It is orders of magnitude larger in magnitude and orders of magnitude lower in risk for a perp.
(No quotes or data, so please give corrections as needed. This is ranty and so probably way flawed)
RtW: The IRS and all law enforcement should focus on white collar crime.
BPL: As my brother once said in a law class, “Nobody was ever raped by white collar crime.”
Should there be more enforcement of laws against white collar crime? Sure.
Should all law enforcement focus on it? No, that’s batshit insane.
Here you can all see, it is more personality strengthening military highschool and “academy” with flat earth exercizes…..
……. than proper civil Hitghschool and Bachelor one, BACCALAVREVS 1.
Those things sit deeply in the blood and the bone marrows as intended by the bodily exercises and trainings in closed orders.,…..
…….as WWW. conditional reflexes,
“nearlyn instantaneous moovement in response to a stimulus”., That is typical to the vertebrate crocodile and codfish and very quick cat and also human brains. Tyhey have it in their drills.
“Cerebellum”, it is called. Which is what works when you, after some training, can automatically drive a bicycle and think of and look at anything else. By training, the Cerebellum takes over all the routine automatics so you do not have to think of it.
But that can aloso lead you into routine and thoghtless behaviours.
Cerebellum is our tiny brains, the original ones, our tiny crocodile and codfish brains that is the seat and center of quick awareness and consciousness on common vertebrate and animal- level. It is the brainy and mental CPU, central processing unit.
The Cerebellum is that tiny candle- flame of awareness and consciousness back there on the upper roof in your brains (if you have any), that is meant to throws its light over it all. It is the most devine and original brains.
Cerebellum is equal to your tiny brains, that you rather should have got quite exactly between your ears.
The quite much larger Cerebrum in the case of apes and Australopitaceae and many other fameous fur animals and whales is the large public library, that is rather slow.
It is the “re- cognition and re- conscideration and re- membering, re- constructionings,. that can take several seconds, several days and months, even several years.
But that is characteristic of Cerebrum and that extreemly fameous “Higher spiritual”. The very library of Congress and life experience of sins and deeds that is to be dug out and examined in the Purgatory.
Litt. Aristoteles Metafisica 1 chap. 1 on Wisdom, and the difference between wisdom and experience.
That’s insane, BPL. MOST rape is white collar crime. When the probability of reporting is about zero because of twistable dialogue then at first glance ya get wildly incorrect statistics.
In other words, look again.
RtW: MOST rape is white collar crime.
BPL: Do you understand the definitions of words and terms? “Rape” refers to forced sex, usually though not always through violence. “White collar crime” refers to fraud and other financial crimes. Rape is not white collar crime and white collar crime is not rape. If you want to say white collar crime is rape in some figurative sense you can say that, but that CLEARLY is not what I was talking about.
Violent crime is a real thing, and to put all law enforcement effort on white collar crime is to ignore a real problem which affects millions of people.
RTW. That is a very clever, quick witted come back, but out of curiosity I checked. At heart I’m a wannabe sociologist and sceptic. It appears numbers of rapes are about the same for different social groups (various research studies). Its what I would expect. Rape is a hormonal and power and control thing that might sit separately to academic ability and other things that relate to white collar occupations. Just an educated guess though.
I dunno, Nigel. Maybe. But there’s lots more on the news about date rape and higher-ups giving non-refusible offers than Stranger-Danger rapes. And since Stranger Danger rapes are the most delicious, ratings wise, I’m still guessing that most rape is white collar. Blue collar rapists get caught. White collar rapists slide, and if “caught” are often “catch and release”. There’s gotta be a good reason. Must be some sort of biome preservation thing…
Ray: Well, there’s that whole Internet thingy. And battle-field medicine has revolutionized trauma care, saving countless lives. And if you want to go back 60 years or so, the military was instrumental in improving the reliability of electronics technologies. We still use Military Standards for testing in the space program.
And DOD has been among the loudest government entities proclaiming the dangers posed by climate change–regardless of who was President.
RtW: All true. I remember noticing that as an amputee I’d probably get access to better prosthetics because of the IED vs armoured vehicle Iraq war.
I don’t think that I’m that smart. Several regs are probably smarter than me.
But I seem to have a cheat. I see stuff regularly enough tThat others don’t so that I feel shame if someone else sees the obvious before I do.
I’m watching Biden’s speech. It’s obvious that nobody in his hierarchy has the chops and also the strength to inform Biden.
Putin is already working to push the inevitable NEW line west. Biden is wasting time harping about defending some line drawn by evil greedy white men ages ago.
And things go well Bookwise. I sure couldn’t have thunk up the plot twists. And how external news keeps echoing the local Story, like when Colorado burned when my Colorado-plated Chevy Spark led me to Re-Pete.
There will be lots of research to do, lots of memories and “NEWS” to weave into the notes I left on Forced Responses. What do you think, BPL? Have I got a potential commercial hit in the oven?
After all, all the “religion” bullshit is just pretend as far as I know.
RtW: all the “religion” bullshit is just pretend as far as I know.
BPL: “Pretend” implies those who say they believe it really don’t but are lying. If you are unable to imagine anyone can honestly disagree with you about some issue, it’s a sure sign that you don’t understand that issue.
Here is another strange opinion by Levenson.
“”If you are unable to imagine anyone can honestly disagree with you on some issue, it is a sure sign that you don`t understand that issue.
We take an examp0le.
A common flintstone (= well defined and known, rather pure, amorph hydrothermal silica density 2.5) will sink in water. But a common cork will swim on the same water.
“NO!…” someone says, quite honestly, and disagrees with that.
Then what is the problem? Who does not undertsand that issue?
To my opinion, there must be limits to sheere, manifest confusion about stating of reality, and confusion abut truth and relativity.
we shall not have to repeat and defend the density of common water and commonj stones and common corks and Archimedes law each time and in any discussionj because any delusional “crackpot” may also show up.
Read it again:
“A sure sigh that you don`t understand the issue.
Comment:
Mad- ness, and false- ness is also human reality, and about whoom? and to be known about and identified.
There must be limits also to delusionary philosophical teachings.
I see your point, but it misses my point (previously stated) that “pretending” might be the way to a larger reality. I don’t use it as belittling. I’m exploring religion and “pretending” really seems to work. Have you found a technique that works better?
By the way, I think I understand Re-Pete’s shimmering coat. The normal fawn is interspersed with fine but a bit longer white hairs, along with some black. Stroke with the grain and he’s got a lot of grey. Against the grain shows fawn and darker. When he runs in the sun he really shimmers.
And the brute loves tug of war. I need to use two looped rope ends (he gets knots in the middle) to give him a contest, at least for a while.
RTW. Don’t put yourself down like that. Its as bad as bragging. You’re obviously quite smart, as in being intelligent and street smart. But regulars here are all quite smart (certain denialists possibly excluded).
I see numerous things other people don’t see, but I don’t respond to everything. But we all miss things and have gaps in our thinking or mind farts or just forget things or rush evaluations..
Qualifications and levels of smartness are not the main point. Its about considering the content of what people say. Some ideas are just crackpot ideas, as BPL puts it. Eg: combatting sea level rise by storing water on land. The exception to this might be if such a thing is a natural byproduct of some other plan.
Quoth nigelj:
What’s the least bit crackpottish about this? That’s exactly what e.g. glaciers do. If we had some way to increase the albedo of various ice sheets small and large, from Greenland though the Himalayas, Rockies and Andes down to Antarctica, we could cool the globe, improve reliability of river flows and cut sea levels all at once.
There was an event not long ago when extreme rainfall in the interior of Australia lowered sea levels due to all of the water taking its time getting back to the ocean. Engineering such events and using dams to hold the water would not merely lower sea levels, it would greatly increase productivity of the dry continental interior.
The problem, as always, is finding practical ways to bring these things about.
Engineer Poet
I was thinking of Macias Shurley’s grand plan to combat sea level rise by storing water on land, by diverting river water into a combination of old half empty aquifers and man made lakes. And he appeared to be talking about using this to combat all sea level rise! And sea level rise will go on for about a millenia at least.Think of the huge volumes of water that would have to be stored on land! It boggles the mind. Its just not practical.
It would be hugely problematic for most rivers ecology. Rivers are mostly already at their limits of how much water can be extracted for agriculture. It would involve pumping water often huge distances because the rivers wont all be conveniently located near old aquifers. It would involve building huge artificial lakes because the amount of water you could store in old aquifers is only about 1 years sea level rise (I checked). Of course you are just really slowing the flow of the water to oceans right down. And its not clear if old aquifers geology would still be capable of storing all that water.
Almost anything is physically possible. Maybe its physically possible, but it intuitively seems impractical and the costs would surely be horrendous and would bankrupt the planet and displace far more useful projects. Even a small scheme looks like it would be a very unwise use of resources. Prove me wrong!
I hate to be a kill joy or nay sayer, but I wont just pretend a scheme looks great.
Your ideas about cooling the planet and slowing down glacier melting etc,etc to reduce sea level rise make more sense. Few would argue with that. Likewise your ideas to use dams to trap rainfall make some sense but this is primarily an irrigation project, where reducing sea level rise is a by product and is consistent with what I said such water storage schemes make sense “if such a thing is a natural byproduct of some other plan”. To me this is the nexus where you get good climate solutions, so when they solve a range of problems not just with the climate problems. So we are causing warming, going to run out of oil and burning fossil fuels causes air pollution, so obviously clean low carbon energy solutions are the way to go
@nigelj – ” I was thinking… ”
— That seems to be your biggest problem.
– You’re just a bit slow on the uptake… and you’re standing permanently on your own hose.
– You try to compensate with overly long, superfluous posts written without any overview,
which unfortunately doesn’t make you any smarter.
– Your skills as a climate project manager fail because you even don’t know how to calculate the value of a water butt.
Maybe it will help you if you get smacked over and over again for your own stupidity.
Your last blatant stupidity is to suggest that rain barrels cost trillions of dollars as a climate protection measure for the roofs of the world – even though I know there are billions to be made from them:
N.: – ” Maybe its physically possible, but it intuitively seems impractical and the costs would surely be horrendous and would bankrupt the planet and displace far more useful projects. Even a small scheme looks like it would be a very unwise use of resources. Prove me wrong! ”
— Your personal answer to water scarcity and desertification ??? dumb…dumb…dumb
The smallest measure for water retention over land areas is the so-called rain barrel
(one can only hope that you have seen something like this before)
Of course, the roof area (e.g. 100m²) and the volume of the annual average precipitation (e.g. 1000L/m²) and the costs and service life of the rain barrel are decisive. After 30 years, my rain barrel has ideally diverted 3000m³ of runoff into gullies and rivers => into garden irrigation, washing machine, & evaporation and saved me ~ € 10,000 / 30 years on the water bill with , because I pay actually € 2.20/m³ for drinking water and € 1.70/m³ for sewage fees.
The global urban land area is ~ 1.5 million. km² (increasing trend). The proportion of roof areas is estimated at ~25% = ~375,000km².
With average annual precipitation of 1000mm/m², that’s 375km³ = ~ 1mm SLR.
25-30% of the annual SLR would thus be “defused” – a corresponding amount could remain in the groundwater – with a provisional, economic and global total gain / year of
€ 375,000,000,000 (at 1€/m³).
Mr. N. Dumbhead this is a triple win situation –
now it’s best to buy a big bottle of wine and lie down in a rain barrel for a week or 2
to think about your career as a manager of climate-protection-projects. There you can think about why the rain barrels don’t cost trillions & trillions – but bring in these trillions as a material & climate-protective gain.
BTW – Photosynthesis requires ~1000L of water to assimilate ~1-2 kg of carbon from the atmosphere.
375km³ for additional plant growth can thus absorb additional~ 0.75Gt carbon or up to 2.75Gt CO²/y.
Curious…What is your suggested “practical way” of storing 430-odd cubic km of new water per year (per https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/ice-sheets/) on land?
What is your “practical way” of using the water for irrigation while at the same time _permanently_ (not just for a short while) sequestering an additional 430-odd cubic km on land next year as well? And each year on into the future? And increasing more than linearly one could add.
I know of few places on earth where we can build holding ponds that are the equivalent of km’s high ice sheets. Your handwavium “solution” is also likely to be far FAR more expensive than solutions attacking the problem rather more directly.
To all and everyone exept Dr. Techn. E. Poet and Hr. Schürle,
About crackpottish (poetic?) engineering:
In the fifties, after atomic bombs were invented, there came several suggestions to their rather peaceful use also.
I have red suggestions about blasting out a whole new harbour in Alaska where there is none.
But most poetic (crackpottish?) the idea of blasting a waterway so that the river Ob in Siberia can be led over into the arid lands of Kasakhstan and the Aral sea.
It may also have been the flat earthers, who suggested that “it would greatly increase productivity of the dry continental interious”, hardly understanding in which direction water is running. And thus planted as ” hon. members of the soviett science academy”,
We tried that. There is a reason why dams are being removed: They disrupt/destroy the ecological functions of the planet.
Appears you may be right.
https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2022-02-25/major-hurdle-cleared-in-plan-to-demolish-4-california-dams
“The problem, as allways, is finding practical ways to bring these things about.”
Another old rule Hr E.Poet is that “Nothing is impossible for God and a Mecanic (engineer)”.
That is an old, optimistic formula among scilled technicians,
But intelligent readers here will see that it has got 2 premises. The enineer must not just be poetic; he must also be autentic. And secondly, he must not fight or work against material substansial and functional reality. On the contrary, he must know it well, believe in it and work in accordance with it.
Bull. It takes an inventor, something engineers aspire to. But primary patents are rare and engineers are plentiful.
Do.
The.
Math.
Well, BPL, we get to find out which of us are right with regard to Russia.
Ukraine, with weapons from NATO (incl USA), might kick Russia’s butt in the initial war. And pacifying Ukraine seems improbable by such a pathetically weak state. Did you see that discussion where all the oligarchs who run Russia showed their chops by quivering in front of Putin? You fear that lot??
China is winning this round. They’ve effectively colonized Russia and so solved their natural resource problem.
O yeah, BPL:
Compare “Communist” USSR and “Capitalist” Russia. Tell us how wonderful Capitalistic Russia is.
I dare ya. Tell us anything at all that improved in Russia by going Capitalist. Anything. One thing. One.
;-)