[dohboi]

Solar would be Cheaper: US Pentagon has spent $8 Trillion to Guard Gulf Oil

we shouldn’t be using petroleum and nor should our allies. The supreme tragedy is that the US has bankrupted itself ensuring military security for the oil-producing nations of the Gulf when oil production is destroying the world. We need a crash program to get the world off petroleum, some 70% of which is used to power automobiles.

(Thanks to prok for this link.)

[ROCKMAN]

I wouldn't disagree with the theme but here's the problem: without the oil/NG resources we wouldn't be able to build out the alts. Unfortunately while we're spending beaucoup keeping the ff machine running it doesn't leave much to invest in the alts. A nice slow but steady transition might work. But the big question there is whether we have the time to do that. You can't spend $trillions on alts if you're spending $trillions for FF. But if you don't keep the ff flowing then the economies (which have to fund the alts) suffer. This seems to be more like one of those predicaments with no solution than a problem which might have a solution.

Sorta like the having your oily cake and eating it to.

[Timo]

Agreed. A complete flip of funding priorities wouldn't work. All or nothing won't work. It has to be a gradual transition in order to allow the dependent economies to adjust to the new paradigm. However, all that said, it still MUST be done. My suggestion for where to start would be to shift the federal subsidies for oil production to alt production and research. Maybe a 50/50 split in that area. There's no reason we should be subsidizing some of the most profitable corporations in the world in order to maintain BAU with an acknowledged limited lifespan, and which causes more harm than good. If we reduce simplicity of easy profits from ffs, then the shift to alts will be more economically natural, and feasible. Of course, that is much easier said than done, if it's ever done at all.

[dohboi]

I haven't really heard of anyone proposing an immediate, 100% shift, but I might have missed something. But climatically, we need to get there pretty darn fast.

And of course big reductions on the demand side are what are required most immediately.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... umLH9kOpOI

[ROCKMAN]

dohboi - "But climatically, we need to get there pretty darn fast." And there's the heart of the problem, eh? Not only is anything not happening "darn fast' but there really isn't anything happening darn slow IMHO. Of course can't do a 100% flip. But do you really see anything that amounts to even a 1% flip when you get right down to it? The world is producing more oil, NG and coal BTU's than ever before as I estimate the numbers. It doesn't matter how much alt energy is coming online. We are transferring more C atoms from the ground to the atmosphere than ever before and with processes in place to increase that amount.

The only significant "flipping" IMHO is in the verbiage about limiting GHG emissions as opposed to actually accomplishing anything meaningful in that regard. A truly tremendous amount of conversation about changing BAU without any significant actions to do so. Not only are we not moving fast ahead or even slowly...in some ways we're actually sliding backwards. For instance the US govt likes to brag that we are burning less coal in the US while at the same time the US has become the 4th largest coal exporter on the planet and has increased the export of our high sulfur coal to China by 500% in recent years. On top of that the same govt is trying as quickly as possible to increase our coal export capabilities. It also fully supported the completion of the southern leg of the Keystone XL Pipeline which will shortly alleviate the choke point in OK that has hindered the development of the Canadian oil sands. The same govt that has offered over 100 million acres of leases in the offshore Gulf of Mexico as well as approving hundreds of new drill permits out there…all happening AFTER the Macondo blow out.

And the US is offered as the righteous messenger against climate change? It would be really funny if the reality weren’t so different.

[dohboi]

The fact that it isn't happening in no way negates the fact of what has to happen in order to preserve something remotely resembling a livable planet.

But if you want me to say it the billionth time: yes, we are totally, utterly and completely f~cked.

But we like having nice conversations about what could be, even if it's not going to be, don't we?

ETA: And here's yet more evidence (as if we needed any more) of my first 'but' above (plus a benefit smiley twerk):

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/1 ... y-thought/

[ROCKMAN]

dohboi - First, I always enjoy hearing you cuss...just the oil field trash in me. LOL. Second, "But we like having nice conversations about what could be, even if it's not going to be, don't we?". Actually I don't. Truthfully it borders on rubbing salt into a wound for me. And it has nothing to do with the environment. For 38 years I've had one geologist after another trying to blow smoke up my ass about their "great expectations” for their drilling idea. I got over getting excited about what "might" happen long ago. I just stick with what I consider are reasonable expectations. Which actually kills the majority of ideas geologists generate.

Likewise with the environment. I don't prejudice my expectations with such matters as what "could be done", what "needs to be done" or even what's the "moral thing that should be done". And above all else, I don't paint my expectations with what "I want to see happen". My world is much simpler: what is being done today with just a touch of what I see folks actively trying to change tomorrow. Beyond that the rest is just filler material IMHO. Just fiber which only helps you poop better.

I don’t mean to be a downer let alone a doomer. But I also don’t have a problem accepting the harsh realities of life. I got a world class education in that regard when I was 18 yo. All dogs don’t go to heaven because there is no heaven. You can’t trust your govt 100%. And everyone dies eventually. Might be from climate change, a crazy white boy with a gun or MS. But no one gets out of this game alive. LOL.

[dohboi]

" we're going to have to do it from the bottom up"

Nicely put.

Maybe you can help me convince the ROCK to start a revolution/walk out among all the well trained folks in the oil industry.

Few thing would more quickly take down our geo-cidal culture and crash our carbon emissions to nothing.

That would be the truly heroic thing to do.

But the age of heroes is over.

We're all sheeple now.

[Keith_McClary]

(Thanks to prok for this link.)

http://www.juancole.com/2013/12/cheaper ... llion.html

[Keith_McClary]

Sorta like the having your oily cake and eating it to.

You can't have your $trillions and your empire too. Which means tossing your "staunch allies" under the bus.

[Shaved Monkey]

Pretty hard to have influence if you cant control the flow of the sun
and you cant print greenbacks for every ray of sunshine.
Israel only exists because of loyal scared royals with lots of oil that need protecting.

[KaiserJeep]

So we need legislation to create a "solar depletion allowance" for energy companies. Not so hard.

[Quinny]

You are joking aren't you!

My grandfather used to joke that they'd tax fresh air and sunshine if they could!

[Strummer]

Therein lies the problem. If everyone produced their own power and grew their own food how would TPTB collect taxes or make profit?

People have produced their own power and grew their own food for all of human history and that didn't stop TPTB from collecting taxes. We would simply go back to feudalism.

[Timo]

Therein lies the problem. If everyone produced their own power and grew their own food how would TPTB collect taxes or make profit? Their just not going to let that happen. We are truly screwed.

Yup! You're right. TPTB have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, which is a capitalist system of economics. However, nearly everyone in the western world assumes (correctly, or perhaps incorrectly) that the capitalistic system that we all know and love is the ONLY model of capitalism able to exist and function. I think nearly everryone can agree, whether you're an ardent capitalist, or even a socialist, that modern capitalism is exploiting the planet to its destruction. As this knowledge becomes more widely understood and accepted, and as time to address climate change before game over starts to run out, we very well might start to see some different methologies for a capitalistic economic system being thrown out there for discussion that offers an alternative to BUA, as if that's the only way possible for the modern world to go. Maybe it's not. Maybe there are other economic systems that combine some of the the best of what we love about the system we currently have, and the acknowledged needs of the planet we depend on for that system to function at all. I'm just thinking out loud (or on my keyboard), but maybe there are other systems of economics that would effectively address the problems our current system is causing. I don't know what those systems would be, but clearly, on the whole, BAU has failed. BIG TIME! There must be some other way to go.

[Threepwood]

TPTB have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo

handing out gazillions to alternative energy, + permits to specifically kill protected species

while billing oil companies half a million per seagull for a shampoo... doesn't exactly seem like favoritism towards oil companies!

But they are both useful to TPTB in their own way- one provides cash to fund the other. The other creates industries that can never compete in a free marketplace and so increase dependency on TPTB..

[clif]

handing out gazillions to alternative energy

Got a verifiable link to those gallizillions?

Or just another right wing talking point with no real facts behind it.

[clif]

billing oil companies half a million per seagull

Far from the truth;

http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175284/

In the case of the Valdez spill, according to the Associated Press, "the state priced each seagull at $167, eagles at $22,000, harbor seals at $700, and killer whales at $300,000." Such an effort could be replicated for the Gulf. Yet a price tag of $167 per seagull seems tragically inadequate as a means of accounting for a destroyed population of birds, and it doesn’t begin to account for species that may seem less significant to us, but could be crucial to the ecosystem.

$167 is far from half a million

Remember until the bought right wing judges issue their rulings no money ever gets paid.

In the case of the Exxon Valdez, the billions in fines ended up being $507.5 million, thanks to the the US Supreme Court

The first Bush administration allowed the company to plead guilty to a small number of charges and settled for penalties and fines of around $1 billion. The judge who ultimately approved the settlement had earlier worried that the amount was too low: "I'm afraid these fines send the wrong message," he said, "and suggest that spills are a cost of business that can be absorbed."

It was a prescient concern, especially given the resolution of the class-action suit. In that arena, Exxon's lawyers proved patient and skilled. They held up the case in court for years until, in 2008, nearly two decades after the spill, the Supreme Court ruled that damages paid by the company would be limited to an exceptionally absorbable $507.5 million.

(same link)

BTW most of that 507.5 million was reimbursed by insurance Exxon held.