Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
The infrastructure isn't there to make a quick switch. It would have to be a gradual weaning off of it. But, we really should start that weaning process. The process may even create new jobs. I just know that our dependency on oil is hurting us as a nation and it shapes our foreign policy. It rubs me the wrong way that we have anything to do with countries like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. We really need to be self-sufficient when it comes to the energy that move our nation.
Location: In a Galaxy far, far away called Germany
4,300 posts, read 4,410,771 times
Reputation: 2394
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dutchman01
You do realize you're only hurting the poor, right?
I think we are all hurting and all will be hurt as we gradually wean off of petroleum as a source of fuel. It doesn't have to be painful, but our pain is only getting more intense as we stay on it.
What other freedoms would you like to remove from us by force to satisfy your agenda? Religion? speech? ideology? property ownership? gun ownership?
This isn't the USSR.
In order to establish a more perfect socialist society I'd say that should just about do it.
Peak Oil... not a tinfoil hat subject but a reality that has to be addressed or civilization itself will collapse within the next few decades. This isn't Obama waking up one morning and deciding to go wild and crazy; this is part of a long-term stabilization plan that is ultimately the lesser of 2 evils. Big O is just another salesman for the change.
Remember that when you are cold and hungry, and be greatful you aren't dead and/or eating your neighbor as it would have been otherwise.
You are aware that people who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, aren't you?
.........It is this earlier Great Leap Forward campaign that is the theme of Jasper Becker's Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine. That the Great Leap Forward resulted in a massive loss of human life has been known to experts in Chinese communism. R.J. Rummel, in his detailed account, China's Bloody Century: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900 (1991), devoted two chilling chapters to this period of Chinese history.
But Mr. Becker's book is the first account that is based on personal interviews with the survivors in many parts of China, as well as drawing upon new or recently released documents on the magnitude of this human disaster. In short, at least 30 million people died from a planned famine.
Mao, who knew absolutely nothing about either technology or economics, got it into his head that China could be remade into a modern industrial power, surpassing both the United States and the Soviet Union, through sheer determination and physical effort. He thought that what had taken America or Great Britain or France a hundred years to achieve, in terms of industrial productive capability, could be matched in China in a mere five or ten years.
Tens of millions of people were taken out of farm production to construct canals, roads, bridges, dams, and railways all around China with little more than their bare hands. The vast number of these projects ended up being structurally unsound and unusable. China's industrial "leap" into the modern age was to be performed through the construction of steel-making furnaces in people's backyards. Every conceivable piece of metal, including essential farm equipment and household utensils for cooking and eating, was confiscated and literally thrown into the fire. All that came out were unusable lumps of steel..............
Location: In a Galaxy far, far away called Germany
4,300 posts, read 4,410,771 times
Reputation: 2394
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dutchman01
Not in spain.
Really? I just saw a show on the Science channel about how Spain has developed more Solar farms than any other European country (they have plenty of sun, so that is understandable). That has created jobs. Perhaps, not as much as was lost in other areas - but I think that has more to do with the world's recession and probably holds true for nearly all countries.
I think we are all hurting and all will be hurt as we gradually wean off of petroleum as a source of fuel. It doesn't have to be painful, but our pain is only getting more intense as we stay on it.
Whaddya' mean "we" limosine liberal?? Socialism is for the rich, not the working poor. In the end it's always us who suffer.
.................. •As you can see, there's no easy compromise between the two schools. The Big Numbers are so high that picking the midpoint between the two schools would still give us a Big Number. It may appear to be a rather pointless argument -- whether it's fifteen or fifty million, it's still a huge number of killings -- but keep in mind that the population of the Soviet Union was 164 million in 1937, so the upper estimates accuse Stalin of killing nearly 1 out of every 3 of his people, an extremely Polpotian level of savagery. The lower numbers, on the other hand, leave Stalin with plenty of people still alive to fight off the German invasion.
•Although it's too early to be taking sides with absolute certainty, a consensus seems to be forming around a death toll of 20 million. This would adequately account for all documented nastiness without straining credulity:
◦In The Great Terror (1969), Robert Conquest suggested that the overall death toll was 20 million at minimum -- and very likely 50% higher, or 30 million. This would divide roughly as follows: 7M in 1930-36; 3M in 1937-38; 10M in 1939-53. By the time he wrote The Great Terror: A Re-assessment (1992), Conquest was much more confident that 20 million was the likeliest death toll.
◦Britannica, "Stalinism": 20M died in camps, of famine, executions, etc., citing Medvedev
◦Brzezinski: 20-25 million, dividing roughly as follows: 7M destroying the peasantry; 12M in labor camps; 1M excuted during and after WW2.
◦Daniel Chirot:
■"Lowest credible" estimate: 20M
■"Highest": 40M
■Citing: ................
Really? I just saw a show on the Science channel about how Spain has developed more Solar farms than any other European country (they have plenty of sun, so that is understandable). That has created jobs. Perhaps, not as much as was lost in other areas - but I think that has more to do with the world's recession and probably holds true for nearly all countries.
2.2 jobs lost for every one gained. Not a very compelling argument.
Really? I just saw a show on the Science channel about how Spain has developed more Solar farms than any other European country (they have plenty of sun, so that is understandable). That has created jobs. Perhaps, not as much as was lost in other areas - but I think that has more to do with the world's recession and probably holds true for nearly all countries.
Spain was lucky. They only lost 2.2 jobs for every green job created. In the uk it's been much worse.
Study: “Green” initiatives actually costing more jobs than they create
Bad news for the AGW crowd – from the BBC (via Memeorandum):
Government support for the renewable sector in Scotland is costing more jobs than it creates, a report has claimed.
A study by consultants Verso Economics found there was a negative impact from the policy to promote the industry.
It said 3.7 jobs were lost for every one created in the UK as a whole and that political leaders needed to engage in “honest debate” about the issue.
The Scottish government called the study “misleading” and said 60,000 jobs could be created by the sector by 2020.
The report, called Worth the Candle? The economic impact of renewable energy policy in Scotland and the UK, said the industry in Scotland benefited from an annual transfer of about £330m from taxpayers and consumers elsewhere in the UK.
It said politicians needed to recognise the economic and environmental costs of support for the sector and focus more on the scientific and technical issues that arose.
Richard Marsh, research director of Verso Economics and co-author of the report, said: “There’s a big emphasis in Scotland on the economic opportunity of investing in renewable energy.
“Whatever the environmental merits, we have shown that the case for green jobs just doesn’t stack up.”..........
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
