I am her

[JanS]

redblack…i’m almost 70, and you still converse with me, so, yeah, not ageist. I grew up in eastern PA with Republican parents, about 60 miles NW of Philly. Still a republican enclave as far as I’m concerned.We simply did not discuss politics in my house, and we got along just fine. I think my parents were more purple than anything. I left home at 18, so got influenced in other parts, Wash, DC for one, late 60’s early 70’s. I guess I would claim to be anti-corporate, too. I’m a bit of a realist, and know that breaking from the corporate, the big money, is going to take time.And, the joke that is our prez elect sure has conned a lot of people into thinking that he would start to fix that.Joke’s on them. I doubt it would have been fixed under HRC, either…we are just too entrenched now. Not ready to throw up my hands yet…

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[waynster]

I to grew up in a blue/purple house my mom more blue my dad purple (yes here in WS) at same the same time I became more in the middle of the road and I learned that women had rights just like men and minority’s where just as equal as whites and religion was your right to choose and practice and resources being striped from the environment at alarming rates would do more harm then good yet a strong military was needed to defend freedoms…… there are a lot of Dem and GOP who hide behind the conservative and liberal band wagons if they came out of the shadows more would get done in the near future then what will ever be done in the next 2 yrs of trumpers follies ……

http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2016/11/27

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[JoB]

redblack..

union guys voting for Trump.. it’s sad.. and frustrating.
but here’s the deal.. he promised what he can’t deliver and they bought the promise… and sadly.. in this economy.. who can really blame them.

Chasing workers by promising them what we can’t deliver is not the answer.. as proven by the Obama presidency. And right now.. that’s the only way to chase them because they are too angry at their inability to meet their own expectations.. no matter how hard they work.. to listen to reason.

Believe it or not i know there is a lot not to like about Hillary.. but there was a lot to like as well and realistic plans to move employment forward was one of the things to like.

i grew up in a blue collar family… who are staunchly Republican.. almost to a man (or woman ;) ) .. i married someone just about as far left as he can be… and i.. i sit on the left.. but with a huge dose of reality.. i know exactly how much outcome matters… because i have seen it first hand.

I too would like everything. I would love to see corporate money out of elections.. but i knew the only chance we had to get there was to elect democrats and you don’t do that by trying a hostile takeover of the democratic party during a crucial election.

yes. i wanted to see the party pushed to the left..but i didn’t want to see the political momentum we spent the last decade building spring a leak in the process.. and it didn’t just leak.. it ruptured.

I don’t know that i have another decade to see that momentum build again.. and i know i won’t live long enough to see the damage a Republican Presidency will inflict on our legal system… no to mention the damage that will be done to all minority groups.. though how women can be considered a minority given the current demographics is a real puzzle.

We could have done so much…
but i am pretty sure that train has left the station.
and i am devastated.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 2 months ago by JoB.

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[waynster]

Its true union workers in the rust belt have their hopes set so high by Trump they believe he will bring back union jobs from china and mexico and then set large tariffs on those who don’t sad very sad… in less the year they too will open their eyes and see he is full of false promises… then the switch in congress will happen in 2018…and again in 2020…

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[TanDL]

I think the anger of American workers, especially those who suffer because they no longer have high paying manufacturing jobs, is misdirected towards Presidents of this country, and of course politicians will take advantage by promising the moon for their own political gain. A lot of the problems those folks are experiencing come as a result of the end of the industrial age and the dawn of the information age. Heavy manufacturing is disappearing and will never come back. Yes, some of it has gone overseas to cheap labor but a lot of it is just simply gone and/or people are being replaced by high tech and more efficient mechanical processes – the rise of machines. I remember reading about this coming change in the 1970s and 80s. This is a harsh change and one that calls for extremely creative thinking by communities that want to survive. Sort of like the end of the agricultural age and the beginning of the industrial age. There’s still agriculture, but very few family farms anymore and there’s still manufacturing, but high tech is taking over and unskilled jobs falling away. People need to re-train, re-think and re-calibrate their lives. I don’t mean to minimize the pain of this process because it’s very sad and difficult, but putting all hopes on one man or party to solve these huge global seismic shifts for small local communities will not work. Especially the man Trump and his party, who stock the new cabinet with corporate giants who will mostly support the 1%, support increased use of fossil fuels and support the rise of machines to manufacture, to the detriment of us all. American workers reached for a lifeline that’s an illusion.

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[JoB]

TanDL..
at a time when quality education has become critical.. we are not investing..

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[anonyme]

To dig even deeper and expose a truth no one will dare admit, there is the crisis of global overpopulation. Resources are not just shrinking; they have been stripped beyond recovery. There are not enough jobs or occupations or food to sustain the bloat of humanity, even if consumption in Western societies were drastically reduced. Perhaps the rise of despots is merely a reflection of the desperation driving human lemmings into the abyss.

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[JTB]

anoyme, it seems to me your observation is correct mostly to the degree one accepts the distribution of natural and capital resources as dictated by the need for private profit and capital accumulation. The rise of despots is made possible and even facilitated by capitalist political allies. Consider the autocrats throughout the Middle East who were installed by British, French, and American interests following WWI or a number of tyrants in Africa who have been supported by Exxon Mobil in order to assure its grip on oil supplies.
While I accept the roll of money in commerce, I think we (society) have been subject to arbitrary assumptions and rules about the nature of money that benefit private capital and preclude or constrain a more productive and equitable use of it. If government through active and/or regulatory action were able to direct economically and socially more productive use of money than what is taking place under finance capitalism, the global economy would undoubtedly be in a much stronger position that its precarious current state. That would undoubtredly result in a more equitable distribution of income and goods, including good necessary to sustain life such as food. Similarly we’ve already have ample evidence that some goods and services such as healthcare and education, fair better for society as a whole when seen as natural monopolies and subject to public management.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 2 months ago by JTB.

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[anonyme]

Even with equitable distribution, the fact is that the resources required to sustain life on this planet, human life specifically, are finite. There are no loaves & fishes, and food sources do not increase with population – they decrease, and then quite suddenly disappear. It is not simply a matter of growing more crops. I suspect that much of what is viewed as social, cultural or political causes for the huge movement of refugees globally is in fact the beginning of mass migrations due to vanishing resources. I think this goes way, way beyond economics or politics (which I admit to knowing little about) and speaks more to biology and planetary ecology. Personally, I think our species is toast.

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[JoB]

anonyme.. i would hate to think our species is toast… but i do believe that the way of life to which we either have or would like to become accustomed is toast.. it’s simply not sustainable…

there is some truth to the notion that food shortages and extreme poverty lead to political and social conflict.. but an equal case to be made that unsustainable economic policy leads to food shortages and extreme poverty. chicken or egg? at this point i don’t think it matters…

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[JTB]

JoB, I think you’ve missed the direct cause and effect in the processes you describe; it’s not chicken or egg. The economic policy leads to the inadequate food supply and distribution which fosters shortages and ultimately conflict. It’s a linear progression.

anonyme, I believe that with thoughtful allocation of resources, we have the capacity to sustain the species. It will take a lot of technological development with a consensus on priorities, but I’m convinced it can be done although it’s certainly a matter of timing.

In terms of long ball, Steven Hawking believes we’ll eventually have to colonize other planets, but work on that is already underway. For instance there is research going on right now for making building materials (bricks and mortar) for construction using microbes, human waste, and rocks available on Mars.

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[anonyme]

JTB, your recipe for human survival is dependent on some unlikely scenarios. Do you really see a global consensus on priorities happening any time soon, when we have world leaders who are pro-fossil fuel climate deniers? Do you see humans voluntarily agreeing to breed less? Do you see humans agreeing on…anything? Human nature has changed little since we stopped dragging our knuckles on the ground. I see little chance that such a sea change would take place in the minute window of time we may have left to save ourselves. I realize this sounds grim, but I’m a pragmatist.

Even Hawking concedes that it is unlikely we can make the technological breakthroughs that would make it possible for colonization of another planet before this one collapse. Meanwhile, the most useful technology would be a way to create new, clean water. There’s a reason the world’s biggest investors (including Exxon) have bought up rights to pretty much every drop of water on Earth.

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[mark47n]

A word on fossil fuels; Petroleum is used for far, far more than just fuel. It’s in the buildings products we use, fertilizers, plastics, clothing, steel and so many other things that our lives are so permeated with oil that undoing that will be incredibly difficult and painful. These aren’t things that can be rectified with alternative energy programs (petroleum products are in those items as well).

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[JoB]

mark47n
you are right.. fossil fuel use does permeate our society
but there is are fixes that are a lot easier than you think… such as.. hemp based products
and in the meantime switching our dependence upon fossil fuel for producing energy will free up a lot of product for other markets.. and have the side benefit of slowing down our demise

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[JoB]

JTB..
i am with you.. i believe food shortages have been driven by economic policy.. but have seen a credible argument made for the reverse as well…
at this point it no longer matters.. we have to change economic policy to reverse food shortages.. and i fear that will take some doing.

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[mark47n]

My point is that the word ‘fuels’ covers only one use of petroleum and that is a problem. JoB did it in the response to my above post.

Many of the products in question cannot be replaced by hemp. There is also the issue of where do you have enough space to grow enough hemp to match the demand for like products but still be able to grow enough food? It’s actually a very complex problem. As to other options for fuel; gasoline and diesel have persisted as long as they have for numerous reason, one of the largest is trying to wring the same amount of energy from other fuels, even other petroleum products, has proven to be an issue. According to MIT a gallon of gasoline contains 138,500 BTUs and a gallon of diesel #1 contains 129,500 BTUs whereas a gallon of ethanol, a plant derived fuel, at 100%, contains only 76,100 BTUs. Of course, this doesn’t address the energy used to produce these products.

There is also the other byproducts that come from the refining process that are used in other manufacturing processes.

I’m down with working towards eliminating our dependence on oil. I just don’t think that it’s as easy as some would like us to believe, given the intimate interconnection between oil and modern life and conveniences.

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[JoB]

Mark47n

i noticed that electric fuel was absent from your calculations…

you also didn’t mention that sowing hemp in crop rotation will restore depleted fields making them more productive..

and you totally ignored what i said about using alternatives to free up fossil fuels for other uses…

Nobody said this was going to be easy… but it is possible

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[J242]

The changes in use/consumption are already picking up steam. I recently picked up a Chevy Volt and so far at just shy of 3,000 miles on it have used less than 2 gallons of gas. As solar prices continue to decline it will become more and more affordable to drive on entirely renewable energy sources.

Regarding hemp, I totally agree JoB. Hemp is a parasitically beneficial crop and can be planted alongside other crops to divert pests, add nutrients to the soil that other crops can use and can be used at the industrial level for just about anything from pulp, cloth, petroleum substitutes, rubbers, steel like alloys, “hard” textiles and so very much more. Replace just cotton with hemp in the south and you’d have an agricultural boom benefiting industries across the board.

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[mark47n]

There is no such thing as “electrical fuel”. Electricity is generated by passing conductors through a magnetic field. generating a magnetic field of a strength to generate any useable quantity of electricity also requires electricity. Since that requires some form of prime mover you must have energy to handle that part of the process. If you mean I didn’t indicate the KWh equivalents along with BTU’s, well, that was on purpose as the comparison was relative energy between current liquid fuels. Bear in mind that electricity is only a small part of the process of generating it, though. A lot of the energy to turn the turbine, alternator or generator is lost in heat. Believe me when I could expand on the whole electricity thing…While I’m not an engineer, I did teach AC Theory for the electrician’s apprenticeship. To compare liquid fuels to electricity is rather apples to oranges.

As to hemp being the panacea for replacing petrochemicals…not possible.

Solar is a net loss, especially as the home systems that are being installed pump power back into the grid, not into a storage system which is fantastically expensive.

Finally, and I wish I could find the citation for this as it was in Popular mechanics or Popular Science I believe, but hybrids are also a net loss, currently. It takes more energy to build them than you’ll get out of them. As to the Li-ion batteries that power the electrical portion, their seriously toxic waste and they aren’t recyclable, their garbage.

I didn’t say that it was impossible I said that difficult is an understatement.

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[J242]

Mark,

“To compare liquid fuels to electricity is rather apples to oranges.”

Yet Teslas can get between 265 and 315 miles using only battery power and if charging from renewable resource produced electricity ends up becoming almost exactly comparable. For my 25 mile drive to the office and back my battery power alone is enough to not have to use a drop of gas. My car has a gas tank meant as a “range extender” so I can drive up to 400 miles without filling/recharging but it’s perfect for city driving and relatively short commuting trips.

Not apples to oranges at all. Electricity is not fuel, sure. It is a power source that is far more efficient than the combustion of matter. We are currently at the tipping point of Solar being equally cost efficient as a means of power production with wind. Next will be hydro and as more facilities update, it will ultimately become even less expensive via mass production to the point that it’s the cheapest per KW or GW after you factor in the costs of environmental hazards created by other production methods.

“As to the Li-ion batteries that power the electrical portion, their seriously toxic waste and they aren’t recyclable, their garbage.”

Absolutely wrong in so many ways it’ll make your head spin.
https://www.tesla.com/blog/teslas-closed-loop-battery-recycling-program
http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1093810_electric-car-batteries-what-happens-to-them-after-coming-out-of-the-car
https://thinkprogress.org/why-used-electric-car-batteries-could-be-crucial-to-a-clean-energy-future-6ab9a2308cdb#.o63n82g7k
http://www.recyclinginternational.com/recycling-news/9510/e-scrap-and-batteries/united-states/new-reality-car-battery-recycling

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[JoB]

oh those pesky facts ;-)

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[mark47n]

Well, I’m happy to cop to being wrong about the batteries in terms of recycling. That doesn’t get you around the comparing liquid fuels to electricity. Or around my core argument that to only concern yourself with the fuel aspect of petroleum is short sighted and to claim that hemp is the panacea for petroleum replacement is ludicrous. There are may products that used to be petroleum based that have alternative processes now, neoprene for one, but it’s a long way to go.

It’s also long way to go, though, to say that electric cars are clean. They use many things that other cars don’t requires and cause their environmental and ecological damage in other ways, before we address where the electricity is coming from.

Look, I don’t disagree that we need to separate ourselves from oil. It’s going to happen one way or another. I’m saying that many of the solutions that are being peddled require closer scrutiny that they are receiving and that includes the use of storage batteries. For instance, where can we obtain lithium? Not the US! Yes, we have some but, globally, we aren’t even in the market as a supplier. That would make us dependent on the good will of China, Chile, Argentina, Australia, etc. Bear in mind that, based off of the link that you attached from Tesla’s literature on recycling Li-ion batteries also notes that the lithium is, currently, not recoverable. That’s a problem.

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[JoB]

mark47n

we agree that many of the solutions need closer scrutiny than they are getting.. but they aren’t going to get that scrutiny without the kind of public subsidies that brought us the current petroleum industry… are we?

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[J242]

“That doesn’t get you around the comparing liquid fuels to electricity. ”

When an electric car can get comparable range to 10 gallons in a similar car then yes it is absolutely, 100% comparable. When driving around the city in stop & go traffic, my vehicle does not use any gasoline at all. I can make it do so if I choose to, but I do not have to.

“Or around my core argument that to only concern yourself with the fuel aspect of petroleum is short sighted and to claim that hemp is the panacea for petroleum replacement is ludicrous. ”

I am not only concerning myself with the fuel aspect of petroleum. That is an important one to get off of though as we have alternatives becoming available at more affordable rates, reliability and range every year. We are at a tipping point where we can significantly reduce our use of gasoline. For many other uses of petroleum, it will take far longer to get off of but you seem to think it’s just not possible or plausible. It absolutely is plausible though. Bio-diesel is a perfect example. People right now are already able to modify consumer vehicle diesel engines to run off of their own bio-fuels with little to no petroleum used. People have been doing this since the 80’s and it’s just getting easier with after-market kits.

This battle has been raging for well over a decade now and everyone who doesn’t have a vested interest in the oil companies seems to be in agreement on it.

http://biodieselmagazine.com/articles/1434/hemp-biodiesel-when-the-smoke-clears/
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2008/jan/28/whyishempoffthebiofuelme

The ethanol in most gasoline is already a bio-fuel and our engines have adapted accordingly for less pollution. Hemp is similar. I’m not saying it will replace gasoline as we currently have it but it absolutely can be used in bio-diesel engines.

Electric vehicles can and are beginning to replace ICE only cars and bio-diesel can replace petroleum only diesel. The only problem right now is cost. Oil industry getting tens of zeros in subsidies while auto-manufacturers get almost none to replace their old infrastructure with more modern sources of power. Do you know off hand what electric vehicles Chevy, Ford, Kia, BMW, Cadillac or Kia sell? The only thing they air commercials on are Toyota’s Prius (hybrid, cannot run in pure electric mode until one of the most recent 2017 models).

They are incentivized to do the least amount possible to get consumers off of the gasoline bandwagon and are taking as much time as they can to do so. Thankfully Tesla is continuing to shake things up and is actively pushing people to get off the liquid fuel but right now, in America, they are the only ones really pushing for it.

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[J242]

“It’s also long way to go, though, to say that electric cars are clean. ”

I have never said that. The power used to propel them “can” be clean via renewable resources like solar but of course in the construction of several thousands lbs of machinery there will be dirty waste. The thing is that they are far, far, far “cleanER” than any gas only alternatives.

“we agree that many of the solutions need closer scrutiny than they are getting.. but they aren’t going to get that scrutiny without the kind of public subsidies that brought us the current petroleum industry… are we?”

Ask Tesla. They took a bailout from the government a while back however they utilized that bailout very well and have paid it back. Now they are doing gangbusters. They are dominating all other brands in luxury car sales and are working to release a much more affordable “economic” model that had tens of thousands of people throwing money at them to get reservations for delivery. They built their own power grid for the rapid-chargers and now thanks to their Solar-city deal are working to bring home owners into the fold as power producers via the new solar roofing systems they just announced along with massive acquisitions in solar capability (massive solar farms and a more broadly distributed passive & active solar network across the country).

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-12/tesla-dominates-u-s-luxury-sedan-sales

No public subsidies needed. Musk is turning sunshine into gold and people are jumping at the opportunity to get a piece at full retail value.

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