North Pole Movement

Not sure anyone needs to understand any OPEC nation. It is apparent they are taking gold and giving shaft.
They monopolised oil. Deliberately crushed nations production, fracking and oil sands economy (competition). That is illegal around these here parts.

The burning of fossil fuels seems to be of great concern to the alarmists (yes pollution is bad, but burning oil isn't going away anytime soon).

KJ #41 "So far those trillions of dollars have been skimmed from the consumers by the oil, coal etc. producers, whose profits have not been taxed properly to cover the costs of the devastation they cause to the nature and to the health of the people. Just look at the situation in China to see the extreme consequencies. The USA and the other western countries are better, but not enough so."

Aaaand oil is not being taxed properly. 45 friggin dollars/barrel.
Where is the lefty alarmist pressure to "properly" tax oil, which is mother earths bane, and cause of MMGW.
They were correct in the "millions of refuges" part. But not because of MMGW, but MMWar which almost fits into the plan.

Maybe the North Pole moving around might have something to do with odd climates, not Man.

 

Don't what happens where you live, but there is enormous pressure in Europe to further tax oil, and that in countries where the price paid at the pump is already well in excess of what is paid in North America. The difference in the price paid at the pump between now, and when it was at it's peek, is less than 50 cents per liter. Which sort of means even if the price of Brent Crude was 0 USD, we'd still be paying 1.50 USD per liter here...

Fracking and oil sands knew from the get-go, that it was all dependant on historically high oil prices.

 

Why did OPEC drop the price of oil?...i think it was to crush any competition, and not that they all of a sudden found allah and decided to not make such insane profits.

Regular gas is around 1.10/ltr here. Which is near what it was when oil was around 100/barrel...So someone is making a killing. Who, because our economy is dropping like a led zeppelin.

The only possible bright spot would be our new gov legalising pot, and taxing it like Colorado does. OPEC drives people to pot. lol

 

OPEC responded in order to try and maintain their market share, as any business would. This put the marginal rigs in the US under pressure. Yet the US is still producing a large amount of Oil, and has reduced its imports of Oil and gas significantly.



So blaming OPEC, makes for a nice narrative, but it isn't true.

 

Thanks for that bit GS. Well put.

 

Oil competition?

Once Iran starts pumping 1,000,000 barrels each year by 2017 and other close countries as much there will be countries who cry for help. Even Norway has closed 5 oil rigs and sent 7,000 workers home. Wonder when Putin runs out of money now that China cannot buy his gas.

Political homework. Nobody wants to use air energy because the politicians are backed by oil companies. Why did Canda make the medications of the Pharmacies of the US while George W was in power? Or did I get it wrong again?

Going to dump again?

 

Not sure i have that...People aren't using wind turbines because big oil is retarding them?...there are hundreds of turbines around this part of southern Alberta...not sure if i've followed you on that.

Unsure about the meds bit. Could you clarify please.

Love the Kai.

 

Denmark has some 30%+ through air wind energy. People get money by buying solar cell systems
and selling electricity to companies.

I have to check the med bit but of course as it is george W bashing the document claimed he made a deal with the canadian Phamaceutical firms that they produce the drugs to the US mostly. Heaven knows. However there were many caricatures of george W with oil company logos on his back. Could it be a mistake? the people of US should know. We know details of Finland, for instance our government gave 55 billion euros for free to Germany because in ca 2003 they made a deal which no government official agrees to have signed, that Finland will make a 3G phone system available in a certain time. As it did not take place the money still was given due to contract. That is our money, not government´s. Now we pay it.Still.

 

There were several good reasons for them doing so. Trying to impact the competition in particular shale oil was one. It was also a blow aimed at Iran and to a lesser extent Russia. I'm not sure on the timing if any of the terrorist organizations were getting much in the way of oil income so that may have been a factor as well. Then a number of the OPEC countries have invested a significant amount in companies outside the Mid East. I wouldn't be at all surprised if those investments didn't get moved around to take advantage of the drop in gas prices. Politically it didn't hurt their position in regards to the various governments in Europe or the US either.

 

That was Finnmarks, which was about 8,4 billion euros then. Still a lot of money though...

 

I guess the drug law is something like this back then, and some articles by CNN say Bush did not frankly shut down this system?

Monday, December 8, 2003

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush on Monday signed into law landmark Medicare reform legislation that includes prescription drug benefits and has sparked a bitter fight between opponents and supporters.

The law also allows the importation of drugs from Canada -- where many are cheaper -- but only if the Food and Drug Administration has approved the drugs.

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According to IMS Health, a pharmaceutical research group, sales of Canadian online monthly drugs to the U.S. have decreased from $43.5 million per month in early 2004 to $29.6 million in June 2005. At their peak in 2004, the Canadian online drug companies employed about 4,000 Canadians to about 3,000 presently.
David MacKay, a consultant to some Canadian online drug companies, and the former executive director of the Canadian International Pharmacy Association, estimated that the number of pharmacies licensed in Manitoba, the geographic heart of the industry, has declined to 32 this year, from 45 in 2005, and 70 in 2004.

http://www.therubins.com/medicare/drugcost4.htm

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Since the program started only 3,200 prescriptions have been processed by the plan. There are over 26 million people who are eligible to join the plan which has a network of 60 pharmacies in Canada, Britain and Ireland. It is estimated that Americans bought over $1.1 billion prescription drugs from Canadian pharmacies in 2004, according to IMS Health, a pharmaceutical information company.

http://www.therubins.com/medicare/drugcost4.htm

------------

In order to keep those profits up, the drug companies have joined the FDA in trying to shut down imports from Canada, and Canadian pharmacies are feeling the pressure. In one pharmacy just over the border, Americans account for 30 percent of its business. They were nervous about having 60 Minutes mention the actual name of the pharmacy.

In December, surrounded by members of Congress, President Bush signed the new Medicare act. Since 1999, these legislators have accepted more than a million and a half dollars in campaign contributions from people working in the pharmaceutical industry. President Bush alone has received more than half a million dollars.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/prescriptions-and-profit-12-03-2004/

 

Remembered the year wrong, it seems...

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"All business entails risks", answered Sonera President Kaj-Erik Relander when questioned on the company's UMTS risks on Monday. "The job of a company's management is to control the risks so that they remain reasonable."The financial statements for Sonera for 2000, published on Monday, nevertheless reveal that the company's debt capital has grown significantly during the past year. The company's interest-bearing debt now totaled FIM 34.5 billion (EUR 5.85 billion), when only a year ago it amounted to FIM 7.7 billion.

http://www2.hs.fi/english/archive/news.asp?id=20010213IE11

 

Thanks.
KSA needs the income as well as everyone else. Aren't they just shooting themselves in the foot?
Maybe they are trying to do as much damage to competitors as their cash reserves can stand, then put prices back up.
Other OPEC nations may be able to survive more than say 3-5 years with oil at 50$, because they have larger cash reserves than KSA. UAE, Qatar, Kuwait are quietly playing this game too. They are the only ones able to sustain the waiting game. Hopefully pressure from the poorer opec nations will result in 100$ oil within next 3 years (my optimistic guess).
But by reducing oil to hurt Iran and Russia, they are also hurting decent countries and creating a lot of hostile feelings.

Oil isn't the reason climate is changing though. Blame Man as the alarmists may.
Scientists have been aware of global warming for over a century.
Seems like alarmists don't want to talk about earths long term weather cycles.
Here's one measured in kiloyears. The Malinkovitch Cycles:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles

 

Additional Carbon Dioxide (CO2) has been introduced into the atmosphere by humans burning stuff. No one is disagreeing with that.

For the largest extent of Humankinds existence (the last 200,000 years), the amount of CO2 was between 170 - 280 parts per million in the atmosphere. Also uncontroversal.

We are now at 400.26 ppm (fact), the additional CO2 gas primarily through the burning of fossil fuels. This is a level unlikely to have been present on Earth during the past 23 million years (debatable).

To expect this not to have an effect on climate is rather lame (opinion).

While it is true that there have been far higher peeks (above 1,000 ppm), and while the planetary climate over the prehistoric period shows great climatic variability (fact), such variance is not conducive to the existence of our civilizations. Introducing a known hot house gas into the atmosphere at such quantities is not conducive to the longevity of human civilisation. Especially when we consider the risk of reaching a tipping point, beyond which the damage would be near irreversible by current technologies, and the effects of which would be highly unpredictable.

Earth's long term climate cycles are discussed, otherwise the wikipedia page wouldn't exist. The funny thing is, that research into those Malenkovitch cycles would suggest that we are in a cooling phase....

"...orbital forcing from the Milankovitch cycles has been in a cooling phase for millennia, but that cooling trend was reversed in the 20th and 21st centuries, due to warming caused by increased anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions."

"Ignoring anthropogenic and other possible sources of variation acting at frequencies higher than one cycle per 19,000 years, this model predicts that the long-term cooling trend that began some 6,000 years ago will continue for the next 23,000 years."

So if anything, that should be even more disconcerting, not the opposite, as global average temperatures increase.

However, even if the Earth were warming through natural causes, adding to the effect, or speeding it up, by introducing CO2 in such quantities is not such a smart thing to do. What with the speed of change, and imperfectly understood tipping points. At the very least, even you don't ascribe to the fact that the CO2 levels are yet proven to heat up the atmosphere (although most climatologists would disagree), it is an incredibly naïve (to put it nicely) to continue to spew large volumes of the stuff into the atmosphere, while claiming "But we don't yet understand what it does!" That's about as intelligent as the tobacco companies denying the link to cancer. But they try.

At least humans have developed nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, so we can wipe out large hordes of other humans with relative ease.

Bring on the Zombie Apocalypse!

 

If you take the narrowest possible interpretation of that I think it's possible to come up with a scientific case for it being incorrect. I.e. CO2 has mupltiple and complex interactions with the atmosphere, weather, and climate. As you almost assuredly meant it lame is being quite generous. The real question(s) is not whether there are interactions it's just what they are, how strong they are, and how they interact with other factors

That's a more questionable conclusion, in part because CO2 is much more than just a green house gas. There's also the question of just what it's half life in the atmosphere. One of the reasons the models may be so far off is that most assume a half life of ~30 years where there is at least some evidence that it is less than 10 years. This makes a huge difference in the impact. There's also a serious question of whether or not this half life is dependent on the concentration of CO2 and if it is dependent does it go up or down with an increased level of CO2. There's a very good chance the answer to both of those questions is yes. As for it's impact on human civilization if we were in a cooling period possibly headed for another ice age for instance than it's introduction could indeed be positive at least up to a point.

Climate is alsmost certainly a chaotic system. It's possible to hit tipping points in any of a number of ways that will shove the climate toward a new equilibrium point that may or may not be beneficial. None of this is well understood. At this point deliberately msessing with the climate is probably ill advised. However limiting our impact on the climate will take in most cases incur costs the trick is to determine which modification of our current system have the lowest costs for the greatest decrease in our environmental (considering climate a part of this) impacts. For instance even in the field of CO2 reduction, convincing some Amazonian farmer that selective logging could be more lucrative than slash and burn clearing of a field for more cattle likely has a significantly greater impact than reducing the amount of CO2 produced at power plants by the same amount. I'm still deeply suspicious that one reason the warming leveled out over the last few years was a biproduct of the chloroflurocarbon ban. No proof but the timing sounds right and if it is we got it for free with the ban which wasn't all that expensive and was widely accepted.

If one looks at the climate as a swing pushing it harder in the direction it's going is a way to get higher fluctuations both ways as opposed to pushing it against the direction it's going. The implication is if it is naturally warming it might even be worse than if we are in a cooling cycle. But a critical question is what else are we doing to impact the climate and can we make changes there more efficently than we can with regards to CO2. For instance the latest info that beef may be a carcinogen could push some away from beef consumption especially if taxes on it were raised. Given that Methane is a green house gas as well cutting back on beef production could cut back on Methane production and depending on what it is replaced with migth cut back on CO2 production and or increase CO2 absorption.

It's incredibly naive to dump huge amounts of anything into the environment and not expect to have some sort of impacct. However there is a limited amount of funds (or if you prefer will) that people and countries will devote to moderating such impacts. For that reason we need to get the most we can for what we invest. Jumping on the "fix CO2" bandwagon is almost assuredly not going to get us that.

 

Great reading.
Why isn't information being shared?
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/258375-agency-wont-give-gop-internal-docs-on-climate-research

 

Well, would you like all your emails to be read?

Science is peer-reviewed on the papers published in the public domain, not on private speculative musings between scientists prior to the paper being published.

The information required in order to do a proper peer-review is available. If Lamar doesn't want to understand the data and methods used (obviously not), then he isn't going to understand the context of the communications between the scientists either. Either way, information never intended for public consumption is going to be misconstrued, and misinterpreted.

Lamar is failing to form a scientific-based argument, the only basis for scientific debate.

 

Asking for data is :failing ot form a scientific based argument? If you don't have all the pieces how can you replicate the findings? That's how scientific studies are done. There have also been very clear efforts on the part of some of the CO2 partisans to subvert the scientific process. My gut feeling is that this may be happening here and that they are shooting themselves in the foot in the process. Given the number of anti polution and air quality regulations that have come into place and the sort of lags one could expect before seeing their effects on climate I am deeply suspcious that at least some of the moderation in global warming has been due to such efforts. On the other hand I see no research or sign of it investigating such effects. Probably because the opponents of global warming don't believe in it or want to prove it and neither do the CO2 fanatics. Someone taking the middle ground could easily get flack from both sides and getting published is critical in todays scientific comunity.