[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', '
')Plant, if we can try to keep a civil discourse

[Newfie]

You would be more convincing if you could acknowledge that you understand that the Western world is just exporting its production and pollution and slavery to the third world.

Sticking your fingers in your ears, and covering your eyes does not make it go away.

[Lore]

The rest of the planet has a long ways to go to exceed the total CO2 output over the past century and a half from that of the US. Being that CO2 remains in the atmosphere for decades, if not centuries, we will all be long dead before China can surpass us in total accumulated atmospheric volume. Furthermore, China is the only country that has just now beat us in yearly emissions. Which only makes sense, since we have exported all our dirty manufacturing over there so we can consume the finished product here.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Newfie', ' ')acknowledge that you understand that the Western world is just exporting its production and pollution and slavery to the third world.

[dohboi]

What L & N said.

[ralfy]

Nuclear power has its own set of problems, as seen in what happened in Japan, waste disposal, etc.

Ultimately, the world faces a combination of global warming and a resource crunch.

[Graeme]

The Most Influential Climate Study Few People Know About

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he paper, "Greenhouse-Gas Emission Targets for Limiting Global Warming to 2C," was published in April 2009 in Nature, the prestigious science journal. It was the work of researchers from Germany, the UK and Switzerland, led by Malte Meinshausen, a climatologist at Germany's Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact.


The scientists created what is called a global "carbon budget," which details how much carbon countries have emitted in the atmosphere from burning coal, oil and natural gas—and how much more they can "spend" before crossing 2 degrees. They didn't invent the concept—many others had crunched carbon budgets. But none were as rigorous.


What they found was stark: To have a 50-50 chance of keeping temperature rise below 2 degrees, humans would have to stick to a carbon budget that allowed the release of no more than 1,437 gigatons of carbon dioxide from 2000 to 2050.
To have an 80 percent chance of avoiding that threshold, they would have to follow a stricter budget and emit just 886 gigatons.

The paper found that by 2006, nations had already spent a quarter of that amount, or 234 gigatons. Meaning, the planet's carbon budget would be exhausted by 2024—11 years from now— if emissions levels stayed the same, or even earlier if they continue their upward trend.

From a scientific point of view, burning all of the world's proven fossil fuel reserves isn't an option, the paper suggested. The reserves "vastly exceed the allowable CO2 emission budget for staying below 2C" of warming, it said.

In 2009, the findings were used by the International Energy Agency (IEA), a policy group that advises 28 countries about their energy policies, to make the case for steep reductions in climate-changing gases. "We are currently eating into these CO2 budgets at a disproportionate rate," the authors wrote in its World Energy Outlook that year.

[dohboi]

Pstarr--LOL

G, keep in mind that that study was not considering carbon feedbacks.

We actually have essentially no "carbon cushion" left. Terrestrial permafrost alone was enough to flip us into unstoppable global warming.

[AgentR11]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Lore', 'T')he rest of the planet has a long ways to go to exceed the total CO2 output over the past century and a half from that of the US. Being that CO2 remains in the atmosphere for decades, if not centuries, we will all be long dead before China can surpass us in total accumulated atmospheric volume. Furthermore, China is the only country that has just now beat us in yearly emissions. Which only makes sense, since we have exported all our dirty manufacturing over there so we can consume the finished product here.

[ennui2]

If oil-use is so bad, the IEA probably wouldn't be necessary, as countries would be shifting off of it fast enough that the supply disruptions the IEA was set up to warn about would be irrelevant. So the IEA is kind of like the tobacco growers association telling people to stop smoking.

[GregT]

Well, first post. I may as well get it off my chest, IMHO we are f-cked. So yes, I guess you can consider me to be a doomer.

There is a lag time between CO2 accumulations and temperature increase, so we really don't know exactly how much damage we have already done. At this point, the best thing to do would be to entirely stop burning fossil fuels, period. Instead, we are increasing CO2 output at an unprecedented rate. None of us are exempt.

The likelihood of positive feedback mechanisms causing runaway CC in the very near future are highly probable. We need to find ways to reverse Arctic ice loss immediately. That would seem to be the logical place to start, and could buy us some time until we figure out a way to sequester atmospheric CO2 in any meaningful amount. Problem is, we have a rapidly closing window of opportunity, and there is little discussion, let alone action. It is far more than likely, too late.

Our species as a whole is incapable of moving beyond greed. We lie, cheat, demonize, demoralize, and even kill each other en mass, just to get a bigger piece of the pie. We have not evolved in this regard and we never will. We already had that chance.

There are so many insurmountable ecological problems associated with our exploitation of fossil fuels, that there is really no point banging our heads against the wall trying to come up with a solution. There simply isn't one.

So, short of alien technology, or divine intervention, acceptance seems to me to be the most logical course of action. I plan to make the most of a shitty situation, and live out my remaining time on this earth enjoying life to it's fullest, for as long as I am able.

[ennui2]

Welcome to the club. Eat drink and be merry as best you can.

[Newfie]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ennui2', 'W')elcome to the club. Eat drink and be merry as best you can.

[Pops]

Overview

Slides

[ROCKMAN]

Pops - One of the more significant points made in the report IMHO deals with refining. They say the developed economies are relinquishing market share to non-OECD regions, “a form of de facto off-shoring not unlike the trend in manufacturing sectors”. They expect in the next 5 years virtually all net crude distillation capacity growth will take place in the emerging market and developing economies. And that as the refineries move closer to the well heads more of the internationally traded crude is expected to end up in non-OECD economies.

But remember there is a lot more that’s important than where those refineries are being built. Remember my tale about Chinese refinery expansion? It wasn’t just that they were building what appeared to be an over capacity in refining but they were linking this expansion will long term access to currently exported oil. That one little example again: the Chinese/Saudi refinery to be built on the Red Sea. Those 400,000 bopd that will feed that plant will reduce oil on the world market by the same amount. Even if an EU or US refiner could match the market price for that oil it still won’t be available to them. Probably for decades, if ever. Now US refineries can buy all the Canadian oil sands production they can handle. But after the Bank of China finances that huge refinery in British Columbia with the products pipelined to the coast to be loaded on to tankers some of that oil won’t be available to them. Each of the Chinese refinery JV’s probably includes long term oil acquisitions tied to them. In the future the amount of oil produced won’t be as critical as the amount exported to the open market. And now with increased oil consumption by the producers combined with increases in the amount of oil removed from the market place by China (in addition to the oil in the ground they’ve already acquired) the US shouldn’t be as worried about global peak oil production but US peak oil imports.

The US may still have access to a lot of product if the Chinese can make a biter profit selling to us. But the day may come where having access to those products will become the factor determining distribution.

[Plantagenet]

The IEA report predicts OPEC production will start to significantly decline by 2017-18 (illustrated in slide#8 of their presentation).

There won't be much hope of the world staying on an oil production plateau after that.

[Keith_McClary]

US boom transforming global oil trade$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he surge in oil production in the U.S. and Canada and shrinking oil consumption in the developed world is transforming the global oil market.

The threat of chronic oil shortages is all but gone, U.S. dependence on Middle Eastern oil will continue to dwindle, and oil will increasingly flow to the developing economies of Asia, according to a five-year outlook published Tuesday by the International Energy Agency.
...
“It will affect relationships between countries. Most leaders believe they have to be nice to whoever they buy their oil from,” says Michael Levi, an energy expert at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of a recent book on the U.S. energy boom called The Power Surge.

U.S. petroleum imports have fallen by 22 percent since hitting a record in the middle of the last decade.

With lower demand in the West and higher production in the Americas, much less oil will flow from the Middle East to Europe and the United States. Instead, Middle Eastern oil will head to Asia and likely strengthen economic and political ties between the two regions.

Levi warns against overestimating the political and economic benefits of lower U.S. imports, however. Because the oil market is global, a supply disruption in the Middle East would send prices higher everywhere — including for U.S. consumers — even if the U.S. imports no oil from the Middle East. For that reason, the U.S. will still need to help maintain stability in the region.

[ralfy]

If we're looking at economies coupled to each other, then U.S. producers will probably sell to the highest bidders.

[sparky]

.
The U.S. trade with the Middle East is crude for weapons ,
the gulf sheikdoms are paying back their dollars in useless stuff and buying federal bonds too