Thursday, December 24, 2009

Why the Climate Talks in Copenhagen Were a Farce

Perpetual motion machines. Anti-gravity devices. Carbon capture and sequestration technology. Here’s the question— “What do these three scientific ideas all have in common?”

Answer— they violate all the known laws of physics, chemistry, and thermodynamics, and this inconvenient reality means that all three ideas are bogus in a way that makes them completely mythological. But don’t tell that to the Exxon Mobil public relations people. Exxon Mobil claims in television ads that the oil and gas corporate giant is spending 100 million dollars on a facility to remove carbon from natural gas and return the CO2 to the earth from which it came. 100 million dollars. WOW, what a commitment. That equals the profits made by Exxon Mobil every hour and fifteen minutes. Not only that, but this same carbon capture and sequestration technology is being touted by the coal industry as the wave of the future in their quest for green, clean coal.

All of this public relations smoke-and-mirrors campaign works extraordinarily well on the American citizens because they’ve been dumbed-down by 40 years of education in a school system that ranks #27 in the world at teaching science. Why is this important? Because these same scientific illiterates are able to vote and breed, and it’s their children who will suffer.

Consider these facts. Carbon capture and sequestration technology would take something like the WWII Manhattan Project kind of scientific effort to make it work, if it could ever work at all. The Manhattan Project which built the atomic bomb spent 2 billion dollars back in 1944 and 1945 when a billion dollars was serious money. That would equal about 55 billion dollars today. Exxon Mobil knows full well that 100 million dollars spent on public relations is much cheaper that billions spent on actual science, and the people who are targeted by their television ads don’t know the difference, so Exxon Mobil is, in reality, doing exactly what it should do to remain profitable. And, God knows, remaining profitable is really the only game that is being played here.

If the oil and gas industry’s shell game can be called self-serving and disingenuous, then the “clean coal” strategy followed by the global coal industry needs to be labeled as borderline criminal. China alone brings a new coal-fired generation plant on line every five days, and none of these are designed to be retrofitted with carbon capture technology at any point in the future. Even if this technology could become feasible, it could never actually be applied because of the gigantic number of applications involved. And if that situation seems daunting, then consider this— to replace all of the world’s existing coal-based electricity with nuclear power would require the building of a new nuclear generation plant every day for the next 36 years.

So this, in a nutshell, explains why the climate talks in Copenhagen are such a farce. It’s rather like the Curia of the Roman Catholic Church meeting to address priestly sexual abuse. The only thing that you can do as a private American citizen is to avoid buying any beach front property with the intent of passing it on to your grandchildren.

2 comments:

finefroghair said...

Dude you nailed it with a big damn hammer. Everything about this world is a lie and a scam, everything is created to make a buck period. I am childless and could give a shit about posterity but what about the millions of hypocrites in this country expounding their love of children and family values, they all just sit around playing the fiddle as the world is burning. Ocean front property is also a scam

finefroghair said...

Hey cypher found your blog just cruising through the net. Keep it up if only one person reads your erudite writings the world will be a better place. Such travel amazing you must have such a keen perspective of the human condition. What I wonder are you as disgusted by the USA as I am?


it's the night before Christmas
and I am wearing a frown
the country now realizes
we elected a clown

we were duped
now we've been had
Obomber screws us
man its so sad

the graveyard of empires
that's what it's called
Afghanistan sucks
and I am appalled

a few dozen people
living in caves
have sent thousands
to their early graves

along comes Obomber
and exactly on cue
we need more soldiers
this can not be true

the place is a shit hole
from bottom to top
this stupid strategy
will most certainly flop

where is the outrage
oh what a shame
this never ending
most sickening game

America the Beautiful
that's what they say
if this is called pretty
I'll take ugly okay