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Poster:	Mandojammer	Date:	June 17, 2010 10:04:46am
Forum:	GratefulDead	Subject:	Re: (And I Say) Row (Barack) Row

"It is a fact that nearly all USA-held Pension Funds, Retirement Funds, and Mutual Funds are substantially invested in Oil Company stock, Coal Company stock, and Natural Gas Company stock. This sustained funding continues to grow today at the individual level, union level, company level, local gov't level, state gov't level, and federal gov't level. Total Insanity!"

It is also a fact that every fiat currency has failed. Any and all pension funds, at whatever level, that are connected to these industries will also fail along with the fiat currency. Insanity indeed.

"Everyone knows that we need to get off fossil fuels. It's not sustainable to rely on them for fuel. It's not sustainable to continue to pollute our atmosphere with vast amounts of greenhouse gases."

That's the beauty of Peak Oil. Whether or not the collective 'we' do anything to "get off" fossil fuels doesn't matter. Fossil fuels are going to get off of us.

What we do on a community level after that is what matters.

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Poster:	deadpolitics	Date:	June 17, 2010 10:38:37am
Forum:	GratefulDead	Subject:	Re: (And I Say) Row (Barack) Row

You are right about the transition away from fossil fuels - it's gonna have to happen eventually. Being aware of the change is not enough though, one has to be part of the change in order to not be left behind as it occurs.

If only more people could envision a planet sucked dry of fossil fuels. It's a pretty shocking proposition but a truthful projection, right? It's a future reality that must be considered heavily in influencing our lifestyle patterns as we prepare for a transition. If you're not part of the solution, you are part of the problem, right?

Gotta act now so that we are ready when Peak Oil comes and with it a disruption of the current norms.

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Poster:	dead-head_Monte	Date:	June 17, 2010 11:03:49am
Forum:	GratefulDead	Subject:	Re: (And I Say) Row (Barack) Row

Agreed, Mando. I prefer the James Hansen (NASA climate scientist) model: "Put a tax on carbon-based fossil fuels at their source, port of entry, and mines. Use this Tax Money to provide cash rebates to people who use less fossil fuels."

Jim and I agree that the "cap and trade" proposal is huge scheme for Wall Street traders. It is a ripoff and scam. If this becomes reality, it will be the largest Global scale disaster in History.

Democracy Now interview with James Hansen, 22 December 2009: Why James Hansen is Pleased the Copenhagen Summit Failed, "Cap and Fade," Climategate and More

James Hansen also teaches at the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University. He’s just out with his first book; it’s called Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth [about] the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Hansen, why weren’t you at Copenhagen. I mean, this is your thing. It was the global warming summit of summits.

JAMES HANSEN: Well, they were talking about having a cap-and-trade-with-offsets agreement, which is analogous to the Kyoto Protocol, which was disastrous. Before the Kyoto Protocol, global emissions of carbon dioxide were going up one-and-a-half percent per year. After the accord, they went up three percent per year. That approach simply won’t work.

And I’m actually quite pleased with what happened at Copenhagen, because now we have basically a blank slate. We have China and the United States talking to each other, and it’s absolutely essential. Those are the two big players that have to come to an agreement. But it has to be an honest agreement, one which addresses the basic problem. And that is that fossil fuels are the cheapest source of energy on the planet. And unless we address that and put a price on the emissions, we can’t solve the problem.

I’ve talked with many economists, and the majority of them agree that the cap and trade with offsets is not the way to address the problem. You have to put an honest price on carbon, which is going to have to gradually rise over time.

With "cap and trade," they attempt to put a cap on different sources of carbon dioxide emissions. They say there’s a limit on how much a given industry in a country can emit. But the problem is that the emissions just go someplace else. That’s what happened after Kyoto, and that’s what would happen again, if—as long as fossil fuels are the cheapest energy, they will be burned someplace. You know, the Europeans thought they actually reduced their emissions after Kyoto, but what happened was the products that had been made in their countries began to be made in other countries, which were burning the cheapest form of fossil fuel, so the total emissions actually increased.