More Expensive-Economic Crash or Environment Crash?

rubycodez

Sat Oct 11 08:42:28 -0700 2008

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when effects include killing the oceans a trillion dollars isn't even the right chunk to measure harm.  So the two big jobs to help hugely that the next U.S. president could tackle, which would have global ripple effects, would be how we make our energy and how we farm (manage) rather than plunder from biosphere.  In campaigns some talk of first which could be yet more hot air, second item not on radar really.

I think a drastic....

zogger

Sat Oct 11 12:10:31 -0700 2008

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...push for efficiency across the board, better mileage vehicles, superinsulation on all buildings, getting rid of always on convenient gadgets even when they are clicked off, and etc is the best and cheapest way to address the energy issues for the short term. Just throwing more energy into the environment is still going to heat things up, and by far and away, not needing additional energy in the first place is buck for buck the cheapest and fastest solution. It's not sexy, it doesn't get venture capitalist attention, it doesn't make for brownie points political soundbites, etc, but it is still the best idea, IMO. Back when I was doing retrofitting for efficiency on houses we had rough rule of thumb on around a 2,000 square foot normal house..it comes with a stock wide open three foot by three foot window, once you add in all the cracks and etc. Really, it is that big on some houses and people wonder why their bills are so high. We just dump the bulk of the heating and cooling energy quickly into the outside world, meaning we "need more energy" to maintain a comfort zone in the house, your heating and cooling devices kick on more often. Get rid of that hole in the wall, the difference is amazing. It's a damn hard sell to people though, they just can't "believe" that. this is what they believe, because everyone keeps telling them this -> We "need" more powerplants and to burn more coal and uranium and natgas and so on.

Nuts. Just not true that much, except the issue is being forced because conservation is #988 down the list on the energy discussion.

We used to take before and after infrared photos of houses to prove our work with the retrofits and remodeling, I mean, them pics don't lie. Before, you could clearly see all the heat loss, after, dang, that housewas a lot more even and normal looking. Best tool out there to show the diff.The US doesn't need a single new generating plant, we need to retrofit the buildings -commercial and residential-to not be freaking giant @$$ energy hogs (and to dump a ton of those ego office towers in the first place as just a quaint 18th century idea from before we had electronic communications). We don't need to worry a whole lot about transportation fuels, if the *&&^%&* fershlugginer numbnuts car companies would put some cheap basic electric cars and some 2 and three cylinder cars out on the market with 7 speed transmissions for commuting and whatnot, let alone just small 4s. I've gone around and looked at a ton of used cars around here, dang, sixes and eights mostly, even the imports, or giant fours with big displacement. One liter, one car, plenty big enough for two adults and kids in the back and get double the mileage of the over priced rube goldber designed junk out there now. You have to shift more and no they won't run 150 MPH with a 3000 watt home theater system running at the same time as your heated massage seats and GPS enabled make up mirrors, but for basic transpo-what the heck ever happened to a plain vanilla toyota corolla, that idea? Just bring back cars like that, meet CAFE standards in one year instead of 20. And stuff like that.

Always on ghost watts devices are a real pet peeve of mine, I want the damn thing to be really OFF, an airgap on that switch, not some little trickle charge so the gadget comes on 15 seconds faster. IPv6 can go screw itself, my table lamp doesn't need an internet address and a broadband connection. Go shut everything off in your house and go outside and see that dang meter still spinning. That's just lame crap. Ban most of it, except emergency medical devices perhaps. Legislate back to real on/off switches would probably save a million tons of coal a year right there, some big number. *conservation*

More Expensive-Economic Crash or Environment Crash?

phred14

Sat Oct 11 13:35:24 -0700 2008

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We can't "kill the oceans."  The most we can do is cause them a little discomfort for "the blink of an eye."  Only problem is, the ocean's eye blinks in a few hundred or a few hunred thousand years.  In that "blink of an eye" we can be all gone.

Other than the fact that mankind is a temporary inconvenience to the Earth, I'd have to agree with what you say.  As for "how we farm," I expect it to be taken care of, driven by economics, as the style of farming we currently practice becomes increasingly uneconomical.  Fortunately we still somehow have traditional farms left as seed.

More Expensive-Economic Crash or Environment Crash?

President4242

Mon Oct 13 10:13:47 -0700 2008

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I think the whole bloody mess is lowballed.

I think that with the extinction curves, we're loosing natural capital MUCH faster than we think we are, and I think the problem (if you hold the dollars constant rather than BernakeBingoBux) with the financial markets is MUCH bigger than a mere $1.5 trillion.