Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

'Die off' is a bit melodramatic. We just absorbed a tripling spike in the price of oil, and as far as I know, no deaths have occured because of it.

In point of fact, you are quite incorrect about society needing constant inputs of these metals. These metals are essential to hydrocarbon cracking, to computers, to Grignard reagents.

Yes, the scale of need is smaller - but that has to do with price. which was sort of my point. As oil increases price its relative importance will diminish.

It is critical now, because it was easily exploitable.

We continue to try to exploit oil, because even at its current prices, it is *less* of an lifestyle change than the alternatives.

Do you remember when liberal meant
 

Being generous with your *own* money?

There is absolutely nothing preventing global warming advocates from getting off their high horses and buying solar panels, buying a prius, etc.

In fact, I really think that those are the minimum qualifications before they attempt to inflict those lifestyle choices *involuntarily* on the rest of us. Put your money where your mouth is.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

Hmmm.. First, I think all of these claims are hocum. I believe that CH4 is more like 50x than CO2 - and I have never heard this comment that Ch4 'degrades' into CO2. Especially in short periods of time.

Burn it, combust it .. sure.

And the claim that CO2 is more effective weight for weight is purely wrong.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

I think the claim that CO2 is more effective weight for weight was against water vapor not methane.

According to Wikipedia (Not an authoritative source, I know, but usually reliable on basic stuff), methane has 25 times the impact of the same amount of CO2 over 100 years. This appears to be a common way of measuring the effects of emissions. It is much stronger initially, which is probably where your 50x comes from, but oxidizes in the atmosphere into CO2 and Water with a half life of 7 years

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

Good comments, thejeff - but when some here suggest that the problem has to be solved in 10 years - you can't use the 100 year weighted average.

As an emergency measure, the most bang for the buck effect would be for methane reductions.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

No, I'll stand by my original statement. A die off would be an accurate description of what would happen to America if we could not procure a baseline amount of oil. This time around, please note that I am using a qualifier in my sentence. I am not saying that we will all die if we have to reduce our oil usage by 5%.

You do raise several interesting points in your response though. The price of oil did recently triple, due to minor variations in supply and demand. This is a good illustration of how inelastic the demand for oil is. If there were readily available alternatives, people would use them rather than paying through the nose for oil. Another interesting point is how no one died over the recent price increases. While I apologize in advance for mixing my flamewars, there is certainly an argument to be made that the primary reason America is in the Middle East, and has been for the last N decades, is to secure our access to oil. Many people have died because of oil prices, and to secure access to oil.

Again, I would say that there are critical differences between the metals that you list and oil. As an example, if we were to completely run out of Paladium, it would indeed interfere with the production of new computers. However, since we did not burn the old Paladium, it could be recycled from older computers to create new ones. Also, because the computers that we have will continue to play Dominions 3 without us pouring more Paladium into them, there would not be any immediate disruptions to my turn schedule. Running out of Paladium would certainly cause large problems in some segments of society, but it would not prevent us from developing and implementing solutions to those problems.

I agree that as the price of oil increases, the free market will act to develop alternatives. Again though, the worry is that the free market will begin to act too late. As Barak Obama put it, we need to stop hiring the mercenaries of cheap oil, and start investing in the Claws of Cocytos of alternative power for when the Tartarian Cyclops of peak oil teleports onto our capital.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

Man that's a lot of quote.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

[ontopic]

Heh. Measuring by the Elemental Royalty, 4 path levels is basically what it takes to be a god of that element. I therefore find it curious that so many Tartarian Cyclopses have 4E. There's basically a whole pantheon of Cyclopses that you yank out of Tartarus to serve your needs. You should name the first one "DeadHades," the next one "DeadPolyphemus," the one after that "DeadCronus," etc.

Tartarians should be treated with more respect: they're not just faceless pawns like flagellants, they're ancient dead gods in their own right!

[/ontopic]

-Max

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

It's relevant in the sense that when his numbers were checked, they all turned out to be bogus. When Mr. Felix's other work is examined, it turns out to be anti-evolution conspiracy crap that has no basis in real science at all. The man is a fraud, as simple as that. He has demonstrated an intellectual dishonesty that has been independently verified. This means that if he does make some statement about something related to science as being fact, there is no obligation on anyone to believe that what he says has even a passing acquaintance with truth unless it has been independently verified.

The man is in the same category as the Moon Hoaxers, 9/11 Truthers and UFO cultists in terms of credibility. That's one of the things about integrity and credibility: Once lost, rehabilitation is very difficult if not impossible, depending on just how far you have gone. Felix may link to some interesting news articles, but he goes one step further and then presents hiw own opinions based on the articles as some sort of supposedly scientific fact, without understanding the first thing about any of it. Pointing out that he is a scientific fraud is not an ad hominem.

Re: Someone cast Wolven Winter on New Orleans!
 

Yes, yes, yes, but that's all beside the point. You're *supposed* to ignore his statements. All licker said was that you should follow the links. Those links are to outside sources, some of them news sites (unfortunately, since I was hoping for studies), which should stand or fall on their own merits. Mr. Felix's biography is totally irrelevant because Mr. Felix's web site was specifically disclaimed by licker.

-Max