I can not agree with you in 100% regarding some thoughts, but you got good point of view…

Man i just love your blog, keep the cool posts comin…..

You correctly demonstrate that AGW believers SHOULD in fact be luddites. I never said they were but if they wanted to be consistent, you are right, they would be pure and simple luddites.

But in practice we know they are just like the rest of us. So we can not call them luddites, only delusional for failing to realize the scope of their own energy consumption or out right hypocrites.

You correctly demonstrate that AGW believers SHOULD in fact be luddites. I never said they were but if they wanted to be consistent, you are right, they would be pure and simple luddites.

But in practice we know they are just like the rest of us. So we can not call them luddites, only delusional for failing to realize the scope of their own energy consumption or out right hypocrites.

Again you are adding to my statements and then showing something that I never said to be false.

Here is what I assume:

I assume that people who oppose the production of energy that is derived from processes that they claim to believe is harmful to environment would in fact refrain from using that same energy.

Certaintly I am not saying that AGW believers oppose energy consumption. I’m saying the opposite! They use it even though they say it is bad! AGW believers simply have a pie in the sky idea of where the energy they themselves are using comes from. They do not understand the effect that their own actions coupled with the actions of everyone else has on the demand equation for fossil fuels.

How can we then go to these people for solutions when they demonstrate by their own hypocritical lifestyle that they do not understand the scope of their own energy demands?

While preaching efficiency and negawatts, they go on living a lifestyle that is not supported by renewables and efficiency improvements. They go on living that lifestyle paying prices that are not possible in the future if they get what they want by preventing future capacity.

A grand solution would be to discretize the sources of energy that produce electricity so that those who really believe that coal is bad, can only purchase electricity from say wind turbine generators and THEY can pay for all the accompanying costs involved with such infrastructure.

ksagnostic, in a perfect world, we can have all we want, all the technology, without making a single depression on the environement. But that is just not reality and we ALL have to understand that. Energy has environmental costs involved no matter how you get it. Until the evidence unequivocally indicates otherwise, CO2 emissions is by far NOT the worst byproduct of power generation.

1) You do not know what my “individual efforts” are. This is an anonymous blog.

2) I have not spent my life “obsessing” about it.

3) Reducing GHG’s will also require efforts from companies (Wal-Mart, etc) and governments (R&D, fleet purchases, etc).

But what cosmos fails to understand is that he is confirming just what I am saying and so sick of hearing out of his argument, that “individual efforts, while admirable, are insufficient”. So at the end of our lives he will have accomplished exactly the same and no more than I, and I will not have spent my life obsessing about it.

And you can’t, as they are not baseless and not wrong. You two are impotent at your own game and cause.

It’s false because it is in fact based on a straw man argument. That simple enough for you?

“Attacking a position that is a true representation of reality can NOT be construed as a ’strawman argument’.

“agnostic offered up his own little debating tactic by adding to my original statement. He incorrectly claimed that I insinuated that Cosmos is a luddite and then proceeded to make me prove something that I never even said.”

All right, let’s analyze this a little.

Premise and conclusion: “I brought up the reality that it is futile to come to terms with people who fight new energy producing capacity, while consuming the same energy that they profess is destroying the planet.”

Translation Premise 1: Some people who consume energy are fighting new energy producing capacity.

Translation Premise 2: These people oppose new energy production because they believe it is destroying the planet.

Translation Conclusion: Therefore it is fruitless to talk to people who consume the energy that they claim is destroying the planet.

Why is it fruitless to talk to such people rfl? My guess is that you see this as so self evident you are actually wondering why I am asking you this.

You assume that people who want to reduce human effects on global warming oppose energy consumption (a false assumption, by the way). Therefore, if a person uses energy even while they oppose energy consumption, much less the addition of more energy producing capacity, they must be unreasonable because they use what they oppose. The only way to avoid being unreasonable while opposing “new energy producing capacity” is to not use energy, or at least any energy that consumes CO2.

You are arguing that the people who oppose new coal power plants in the name of reducing the human impact on global climate change need to not consume energy to be self consistent. Therefore, you are in fact imposing the luddite position as the only reasonable position for those who disagree with you.

I stand by my interpretation of your remarks as being reasonable and correct. Your imposition of this position on those who oppose them is also still a straw man (because solutions to reducing the human impact on global climate change are in large part necessarily technological and will involve some energy use themselves). Therefore, the correct answer to your rhetorical question is “false”.

And let’s be clear on something here. The argument that people who consume energy are being unreasonable for opposing the Holcomb plants is utterly without merit. There are mutliple reasons to oppose these plants. I see no reason to rush into construction in relationship to greenhouse gas concerns, true, but my primary reason for opposing the building of the plants is the added depletion of Kansas’ most important resource, fresh water.

If that isnt SOCIALIZING the costs while PRIVATIZING the profits, I dont know WTF is!

Neocons are so damn OBVIOUS!

And agnostic, you are correct. Water has already become the third rail of kansas politics. And it isnt even really on the public radar screen yet.

Ks has “first in time, first in right” water laws. I wonder how “old” the water rights are the Sunflower bought, and where they will fall in the line of seniority. They may just trump ALL water rights out there, including municiple and agricultural.

Now wouldnt THAT be the ultimate joke on the local yokels supporting the plant in the name of economic development!

And, some of us have been agitating for the “beneficial use” consideration concerning water rights. Meaning that seniority or “first in time” could be trumped by the common good, or the most “beneficial use” of water.

It is something the kansas water office, and the ks dept of agriculture dont want to talk about.

So.. follow the “logic” on the Holcomb plant water usage. When push comes to shove on not enough water to go around, and the plant was built on the scam of economic development….

….even if beneficial use is considered, Sunflower will argue that the jobs created by their plant are MORE valuable than any other use of the water.

Checkmate.

I’m tellin ya, these guys are ten steps ahead of the public, and the legislature, and governor “leadership”.

And the game hasnt really even started yet.

I brought up the reality that it is futile to come to terms with people who fight new energy producing capacity, while consuming the same energy that they profess is destroying the planet. Where is the strawman in that? Is it true or false?

Attacking a position that is a true representation of reality can NOT be construed as a “strawman argument”.

agnostic offered up his own little debating tactic by adding to my original statement. He incorrectly claimed that I insinuated that Cosmos is a luddite and then proceeded to make me prove something that I never even said.

However, agnostic correctly assesed this behavior has hypocritical back in post: ksagnostic
Posted February 19, 2008 at 3:29 pm

To me, economic development in the eyes of too many people is like the way some wealthy doners see charitable giving. Both want to see bricks and mortar. Building equals ecomonic activity, and the bigger the building, the bigger the economic activity.

Reality is much more complicated.

Agreed. However, I notice that neither “side” wants to talk about the water issue, at least among the politicians. I suspect that part of this might have to do with the agribusiness concerns (particularly ethanol and feedlots) that are intensive water users. Opening the Holcomb water use issue opens up the whole ugly picture of unsustainable water use in western Kansas (and therefore the rest of the state which is downstream). You’re right, the water use issue alone justifies not adding coal plants for the “economic benefit” that comes primarily from transient workers and a relatively small number of plant workers. It’s using resources that we don’t have to benefit, by the way, a state that is already been stealing water from Kansas.

Whether the global warming issue flies, however, is another question. The pro-coal plant legislators have to count on the hope that the rest of the state isn’t really invested in the idea that the plants are unnecessary. Their hopes may be well founded, but IMO it is too soon to tell.

Debate 101. The person who makes assertions is the one who needs to provide evidence to support them. You are the one attributing motives and thought processes to cosmos that are not evident from what he posts. I was commenting on the fact that such attributions are projection. The evidence for THAT is in the very posts of yours I quoted. Requesting that I provide “evidence” that your ramblings are wrong is argumentatively illiterate.

“Further he states “You have no idea what cosmos does or doesn’t do”. I know one thing for sure, he couldn’t be doing very much of anything contributory or worthwhile for his cause, or anything else, probably as all he and you do is blog all day long apparently.”

Blantant hypocrisy. Count your own posts on this thread verses cosmos and myself. By the standards of your ad hominem evidence, you aren’t doing anything constructive either.

“Perfect analysis ‘rfl’. Normal people don’t obsess on AGW perpetually, yet they do no more harm contributing to it than those two do. And conversely cosmos and agnostic do absolutely nothing more of benefit to slow the ‘damage’ to the environment with their shallow little lives as those that don’t give AGW a second thought. Both cosmos and agnostic are basically hypocrites, and totally ineffectual in effecting or changing anything related to their own cause except sit around and blog.”

Note the ad hominem and attempts to put cosmos and I on the defensive for what we do or don’t do. I address arguments, Boxlock attacks the person, and once again, he attacks strawman constructions of the person. The idea that those who agree that the consensus position on global warming is supported by evidence are somehow opposed to modern technology is entirely a construction of people like Boxlock and rfl. Once again, there is NO EVIDENCE from anything that cosmos has posted, much less myself, that we oppose the use of technology. Indeed, the solutions for reducing human impact on global climate change are largely technological.

“If I’m wrong boys prove it, I hope I am, but doubt it.”

We are not obligated to “prove” that your baseless charges against us are “wrong”.

Very good post at 10:30 pm, except I suggest considering both water and GHG issues.

Coal mining releases lots on methane, a potent GHG. Transport of coal currently relies on diesel trains.

Higher end-use energy efficiency, and renewables would create more, better, and longer lasting jobs than the new Holcomb plants.

And ksfarmgrrl, if you haven’t read yet, I suggest chapter 11, ‘Aqueous Solutions’ at http://www.natcap.org/sitepages/pid20.php

Also, chapter 10, ‘Food for Life’.

Kathy has the call.

It’s simple really. It plays to conservativism even.

What do we lose vs. what do we get.

If these plants are built, we lose water from our already dwindling resources. We get to breathe the pollution from western Kansas where the plants would be built all the way to eastern Kansas. So that “get” is a lose.

What do we get?

Well we get to export energy to Colorado. MAYBE we even get to be coal central and export even more energy?

I’ve not heard of any energy shortages in Colorado or elsewhere.

Indeed, the only power shortages in recent memory came as the result of Enron and their brokering of electricity for profit. There was no shortage of power, just a expedition into greed.

The greatest source we have in energy is the conservation of it. The second greatest is that which blows and flows about us every day.

We don’t need to build 100 year old technology.

We NEED to face the future.

Also, “… the old saying that everybody talks about the weather but nobody every does anything about it”. ”

Human added GHG’s are changing Earth’s climate, and the weather. New coal-fired plants will cause even more changes in the future.

We shoulda saved our tax money and canceled the session.

You can see from this blog that scientists and those who fight science will never reach a compromise or resolution.

If the fate of the Holcomb plant rests on the questions surrounding global warming, is it man made and can we do anything about it… it will come down to which party’s daddy can beat up the other party’s daddy.

hell of a way to run a railroad.

And THAT is why I focused on the water issues from the beginning. There can be NO DOUBT the water supply in western Kansas is rapidly diminishing and rapidly reaching its useable end. The “science” of it is not in question. The reality of it is not in question. It is not part of the culture wars. Water is water, it can be measured, and the supply is rapidly disappearing.

No dispute about THAT from any quarter.

So… we can piss away an entire legislative session arguing about global warming, or…

we can cancel the plants based on water issues and be done with it.

The anti coal people lost this battle the day they hung their case on global warming. Conservative republicans have been trying to discredit science in this state for years, starting with evolution. And global warming. The righteous right vs the tree huggers. At least that is how the legislature sees it. No end to THAT tug o’ war anytime soon.

Had the case against the plants been framed around water issues, we could have disposed of this Holcomb issue right away. Our water supply is going, and it IS going because of human overusage. No dispute or facts in doubt.

But… if the REAL issue (and not a side issue) is bringing jobs to western Kansas, there are a hell of a lotta better ways to do it than to build a damn coal plant that creates lots of temporary construction jobs that send the money “back home” to headquarters and their out of state hometowns.

As noted on threads this week, water based recreation creates far more first tier jobs and second tier jobs than any single coal plant or ethanol plant. And brings in outside dollars to these western Kansas communities. And keeps those dollars circulating. In contrast to the temporary construction jobs that will be gone, leaving only a handful of first tier jobs and very few second tier jobs.

And besides, why do we focus soley on JOBS in economic development? I think we have lost sight of the fact that we started focusing on jobs TO BRING PEOPLE TO OUR COMMUNITY TO LIVE. Population. That was the original be all and end all of economic development. But it got lost in creating jobs as a way to do it. The means became more important than the end. Mostly because business realized it could get away with ANYTHING, including the rape of our natural resources, if it was sacrificed on the alter of the almighty jobs to be created.

Jobs for the sake of jobs is just another way of chasing our tails. If we want to bring population to western Kansas, we MUST focus on quality of life, which includes jobs, but also PUBLIC education, water issues, equality issues, housing issues, etc.

But those are too complicated, too emotional, and too charged with ideology and partisanship as issues for the pea brained voters and elected officials. Better to boil it down to jobs, which everyone understands, ’cause everyone has one.

Forget jobs. It isnt working out here. Focus on population and you will GET the desired results of economic development. You can get population without creating jobs. Telecommuters, entrepreneurs, etc. bring their “jobs” with them. But as a state and region, we dont recruit people. We recruit businesses thinking they will bring jobs, which will bring people. Just bassackwards, as one would expect in Kansas.

Forget carbon emissions. Focus on water and the plant will take care of itself, ALONG with the carbon issues. Focus on quality of life and support of small business and entrepreneurs. The people will follow.

Sorry for the long and convoluted post. We are what the poster said in the seventies.

“we are the unwilling, led by the unqualified, to do the unnecessary for the ungrateful”.

Let’s do what is right. Preserve the water and focus on population. In that frame, the Holcomb plant will take care of itself. And we will all be better for it.

You can’t refute that energy efficiency and renewables are displacing new coal plants.

You can’t support your baseless, false attacks at me.

So you instead brag/complain about what you’ve done.

Individual efforts, while admirable, are insufficient.

And it’s not “righteous” to point out the fact that Negawatts and other solutions are much better than building new coal plants.

“You, and I going to be so dead and gone nobody will even have a record of us every existing or care by the time there is any appreciable change.”

There already are noticeable changes caused by AGW. I probably will live at least a few more decades, and the changes will be very “appreciable” by then.

“Because we don’t think about future generations, they will never forget us.” Henrik Tikkanen.

You’re predictable. You can’t refute that energy efficiency and renewables are displacing new coal plants, so instead you make baseless, false attacks at me.

You should read the book ‘Natural Capitalism’, Creating the Next Industrial Revolution, at http://www.natcap.org/sitepages/pid5.php (free pdf’s).

And have you heard of multi-tasking? I’m usually working on other things when I post here.