I hope I don’t pretend to have expertise on everything. On fracking I have none. My entirely amateur views on the subject are that the major risk appears to be pollution of aquifers. The UK seems too seismically stable for earthquakes or volcanoes to be a serious concern. I am not terribly worried about the local environmental consequences of the installations – human activity of all kinds detracts from the natural environment in a sense. This spot was doubtless a great deal more pleasing aesthetically before Dundee was built upon it. But then Dundee has a great deal more human utility.
It is also plain to me that humans are going to have to burn fossil fuels for a while yet, despite the very obvious fact that we also need to put much more energy and resource into developing renewable alternatives.
So I am not opposed to fracking in principle, which I know will upset some people. But nor can I understand the hurry. Fracking is being undertaken on a very large scale in the United States and elsewhere. Onshore fracking is not actually a new technology at all, but its widespread use is new. Given concerns especially about the effects on underground water supplies, why don’t we just wait for thirty years and see how it turns out elsewhere? That should give time for a good accumulation of evidence.
The hydrocarbons are not going anywhere – they will still be there in thirty years time and I predict will be a good deal more valuable. So my entirely unprofound, non-fundamentalist and dully pragmatic view on fracking is that there should be a thirty year moratorium. Then we can think about it.
Tony; I think the expression is ‘dropping a turd into the butter churn’ or something like that.
BTW; ‘cream rising to the top’ only works for dairy farmers. In politics, the crucible full of molten metal, always allows the dross metal to rise to the top. Evil is lighter than silver and gold, but at least it can’t fly like the birds and bees.
Well known US Peak Oil author and commentator James Howard Kunstler on the recent downward trend in oil prices and what it implies for the continued viability of fracking in the USA (from his latest weekly blog entry):
DoNNyDarKo,
I know I am a bit pissed (don’t normally do that on a Monday..but I have been sober most of the weekend except Friday..)
You seemed to have written my reply about 3 minutes before I posted it…
There are of course several different explanations to these what seem to me timestamps…
but I spent about 10 minutes writing it…and you replied to me before I posted it..
Do I know you??? Are you working for GCHQ..or are you psychic??
Tony
Maybe you need reading glasses Tony?
So once you get..well in many cases it can be fairly young…but assuming you are a bit like me..same sort of age..
How well do you know your close relations..brothers sisters..maybe…cousins…When you are as old as me… do you really want to be invited to several funerals every year..cos you just happened to be the youngest of your particular generation…and then the invites of your friends start to compete with the invitations to funerals…
Well My Wife and I Have not been invited to any Funerals this Year..But We Have been invited to 3 Weddings…already done 2….and the next one is Incredibly Posh..I keep trying to explain it to him
“I don’t do posh…”
He just says to me..Just come as you are..Come With Your Wife…..
I am already seriously missing her…She is my wife, my life, the mother of my children..She is The Guardian of My Life..I was going to go too…but my Car’s Automatic gearbox Blew Up bringing our son and his girlfriend back from the airport last Wednesday…and we have already done that gig when she was Pregnant with our first..him..my cars’gear box blew up..and I knew we wouldn’t get there..We were clanking very loudly over London’s Tower Bridge the Pretty One..at 01:00 am on Christmas Day…
We Got Home To where we lived in LONDON..no food or anything..
I simply could not drive her up from the south to the north in a dodgy car…AGAIN 27 Years Later
So She Went On The Train By Herself To See Her Mum…Tonight..She hasn’t texted me or anything…but her Brother is picking her up from The Station..to Bring His Sister Back Home To Her Mum…
This is happening now…in the Real World.
In LANCASHIRE..Are You Watching..God’s Chosen People…
or Strictly Come Dancing on The BBC..or Gravity…in 3D?
Is it available on Sky 3D for Free Yet…I am sure as hell not paying to see it…
My Wife has already Done That…
She Sees all The Obscure Interesting Films in CINEMAS..and occasionally (she is a bit of a film buff)..and sometimes..she just says..come and see this with me..
Has The Hurricane Hit Yet?
Tony
Thanks, Ben re Lovelock’s Gaia Theory.
The theory suggests that the biosphere of the planet has a mechanism that detects chemical changes in the atmosphere and will protect itself to restore chemical equilibrium. If something significantly increases C02 concentrations, the planet will take action to bring the balance back. Of course, that will take some time, so politicians certainly don’t care. But they should… business doing what business does… i.e. make a profit by burning as much fossil fuel as required to meet human energy demand… is already upsetting that equilibrium. Of course the concept of a planetary intelligence (as suggested by Lovelock) is totally rejected. But we reject it at our peril.
Nuclear power, used correctly, will not change the chemical composition of the atmosphere. Gaia wasn’t about stopping nuclear energy… that false premise was brought in by “Edge of Darkness”.
Err. Tony: Maybe timeout for a bit?
Give your misses the benefit of _not_ having her personal life told about, to unknown numbers of strangers, maybe?
Peacewisher: Lovelock has certainly had his ideas appraised by the very best minds, including Carl Sagan’s. He shared an office with him at NASA, incidentally, and first run the notion of Gaia past Sagan soon after it occurred to him. Sagan dismissed it momentarily, then decided he rather liked it.
Lovelock has some interesting opinions on nuclear power, and – confound the old fellow! – it’s rather hard to argue with his logic, many have tried. The number of excess deaths due to nuclear power is, demonstrably, far less than those for other forms of energy to date.
Ben,
Varifocals mate I get my free test from Specsavers…(back of a free newspaper job..or some crap that comes through my door…and this really nice beautiful bird tests my eyes..and my blood pressure goes up…and she gives me a puff in the eyes)..she then shows me all these specs which cost a fuckin fortune…and instead of asking her out..I say can I have my Prescription Please…She has to give it to me..its a legal requirement and she does…
The only thing she doesn’t give me..is the Pupiliary Distance between my eyes (they don’t have to give that – though of course they have recorded it)…But she is a Professional working for Specsavers..and she isn’t going to betray her company..by giving me that one detail..
So I go on the internet…and they tell me how to do it…it really is not that difficult..but it does involve a measuring tape and focussing at infinity..whilst someone ..even yourself if you have a tripod..take a photograph of your face…
So now..you can go to any website in the world..with the complete description..of your eyes….and…nah I ain’t going to put them out of business..I ain’t going to tell them all the secrets…but all these things cost…but they also give…You can have an eye test for free..from a private company..That is very good..If I had glaucoma or diabetes or anything seriously wrong..you can see so much through the eyes..they would have gently suggested to me..that I go and see my doctor…It’s good to be able to see.
My wife texted me back with a message and a kiss ..awesome.
Nowt wrong with the timing.
Tony
Naw Tony, closest I get to GCHQ is the Priory Arms in Stockwell.
Haven’t been there for a while tho’.
My time stamp should be one hour ahead,I’m in Austria for the moment.
@Glenn: Good for Carl Sagan, though the idea of a planetary intelligence doesn’t fit well with the current scientific paradigm.
I agree that all that Hadron Collider stuff is a sad waste of money. Barking up the wrong tree?
Good news: Greens up to 8% in latest opinion poll, ahead of Libdems at 7%.
http://lordashcroftpolls.com/
Glenn,
Sorry I realise I have now extended my welcome, and you don’t want me to write here any more tonight.
Sorry,
Is it O.K. if I now annoy the really nice people on
The Daily Telegraph…
I have already been comprehensively banned from Alternet in the USA…
Tony xx
@Peacewisher: Why should science have a problem with the Gaia notion to explain observed phenomenon, if it were hypothesised, and tested rigorously, as with any other theory?
Peacewisher; That’s one reason I visit blogs. You learn a lot if you listen more than you type. I hadn’t heard of lovelock but have understood the concept without knowing the source. Thanks.
Cheers Glenn. I value your insight and enjoy your uptick in comments.
Tony; Don’t be offended when folks offer a word to the wise. We’re all here to learn (most anyway) and true love even understands when you don’t state the obvious. 🙂
Glenn,
You do realise don’t you..that one of your real heroes James Lovelock..who I kind of agree with in principle in numerous kinds of ways recently published a major retraction..of what he has spent his life and soul researching being as completely honest as he can..
This Guy is Something Else at The Age of 95…sure To Make 100 +
Don’t you just Love Him??
We all make mistakes..it is the courage to admit them, that makes the difference and gives you the capability to learn…no matter how old you are…If we can’t learn new things..new data..new information…then we didn’t get beyond the age of 7
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lovelock
Is that O.K?
Tony
It doesn’t fit the reductionist paradigm, Glenn. You know… the one that keeps on subdividing, and subdividing, and subdividing until… a fortune is spent accelerating the tiniest particles, smashing them together, and measuring what happens. What is the ROI on such activities, I wonder?
There are plenty of observable phenomena that don’t fit the current “model” (for that’s all it is!). Such inconvenient phenomena won’t get funding. The only way parapsychology – as an example – was funded (Edinburgh Uni, incidentally) was through the estate of the late Arthur Koestler. Of course, Ian Fleming probably wouldn’t have got funding for “blue sky thinking” such as studying penicillium mould in such a “we know it all” climate.
@Tony. Thank you for that wikipedia link. Lovelock is much more remarkable than I had realised.
DoNNyDarKo,
Well in about 1999. I was working for this company in London..and most of the work had been contracted out…to numerous companies all over the World..I was just Piggy in The Middle…
But The Real Quality at The Cheapest Price..(it was backs to the wall stuff) came from 2 little companies…one was Canadian..shit they were good…
But the Best Value..came from the kids working in The South West of England..Near Cheltenham…if these kids aren’t now working for GCHQ..they must have recruited some immigrants from Lancashire..
I mean seriously..These Kids in The South West of England Were Nearly as Good as us in The North West..
Well I don’t know if they are working for GCHQ…but well its just down the road ain’t it..
They invited me and my team to The Go Kart Race I thought I would be Brilliant..but was total crap..I had lost the edge…
Old Fat Bastard…but they did invite me and I tried my Best.
Tony
@Ben: Science is (or should be) all about keeping an open mind and allowing your view of the world to be confounded… even if it rocks you. All real learning is painful. The scientific priesthood tend to protect the status quo and may get in the way.
“All real learning is painful.” Deep learning can be painful or ecstatic. The Shock of Recognition causes me no pain. Anyway pain or pleasure is beside the point of learning. You are either learning or your dead.
Of course they won..it was their own home turf..and most of us – our team hadn’t actually been Go-Karting Before well except maybe me in Ibiza..even then my kid blew me away….but he was only little. He was being taught to drive by this girl only a few days before hr F1 crash..he knew straight away..She was teaching my son to drive..on a motor racing driving day…that he was offered for free..from one of his customers (my son runs his own business and still lives with his Mum and Dad..so I am not home alone..whilst my wife is visiting his Grandmother without me…
I know you don’t believe me..but why should I lie..are you interested in the personal details of actual lives..or are you just watching the TV..
Do you get out and do things and meet people?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar%C3%ADa_de_Villota
Maria De Villota is Dead Now.
Tony
Alexander Fleming. I think Ian Fleming write those crappy spy books. Alexander Fleming alas was no saint, with an individual called Almroth Wright, together they preyed on the vulnerable and desperate, he was involved in a commercial ventures and made a very good living out of producing and selling what were effectively quack remedies, backed by faked statistics and rigged trial results often using unsuspecting, unknowing hospital patients at St Mary’s Hospital in London. He never purified or concentrated penicillin, thought little of any therapeutic uses for it, considered it at best a useful disinfectant for washing laboratory equipment, abandoned all work on it in 1929. He never publicised his discovery, others arrived at it independently, if anything hampered by Fleming’s dismissal of its usefulness and his unco-operativeness in sharing any rigourous or credible data he might have had. Before Fleming’s ‘discovery’ in 1928, the anti-bacterial properties of penicillin had already been widely reported by Sir John Burdon Sanderson in 1871, and by Joseph Lister in 1872, over fifty years before the Fleming myth’s doubtful origins. History holds Fleming to have been a fraudulent, disreputable and vain man, and a poor scientist.
Two hardly known students of Fleming, named Ridley and Craddock who’d done far more and more useful work in developing penicillin than Fleming himself ever did, had the credit they deserved usurped by Fleming, who shared the Nobel prize with two others, Florey and Chain, who had further purified and were aware of Ridley and Craddocks work, demonstrated real and reliable therapeutic uses in 1941 and made mass production possible. Fleming would later go on, brazenly, fraudulently, shamefully to claim sole credit for ‘discovering’ penicillin.
@Tony: “Sorry I realise I have now extended my welcome””
Not at all, Tony. At your best, every contribution is highly welcome. When they’re to do with the conversation, though, not so much when it involves personal business you might want to keep a bit more private, eh? Thanks for weighing in on Lovelock – it is indeed inspiring to think one might still function that well at 95. At well under half that age, I’d like to be doing half so well 😉
*
@Ben: Thanks… it’s uplifting to see your contributions, and has been, even while not seeing any point in adding my own for various durations.
*
@Peacewisher: A mate pointed out the other day that almost nothing tangible has been discovered, and no particularly major breakthrough in theory advanced, for a surprising number of decades. This is despite teetering columns of theories being advanced, all resting upon each other with little but its own supposed claim to existence as structure, none of which have the slightest practical application, nor shred of experimental proof to support it.
Thus there was great the excitement at the proof of existence of the Higgs Boson particle , since it was fresh off the blackboard, so to speak. It took only 50 years to supply! The number of theories based on theories knocking around is now exponentiating. The Universe will probably collapse before the tiniest fraction is shown to have some genuine basis.
Such reductionists have a considerable cheek if they want to scoff at macro paradigms. At least they are observable, for all to see at that.
“almost nothing tangible has been discovered…” – in the field of physics, I should have stated.
The best scientists get more pleasure from what they don’t know than what they do.
@Ben: “I hadn’t heard of lovelock but have understood the concept without knowing the source.
May I recommend “The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth is Fighting Back and How We Can Still Save Humanity” – published 2007, but possibly the best introduction balancing past explanations of the whole theory, and its present implications.
Carl Sagan also wrote about some of the same consequences in the early 90’s, as an aside. It strikes me that he was quite taken with this curious Brit, who had this wild, expansive and yet unassailable theory, but who actually worked on a highly specific and revolutionary technology that he (Lovelock) had personally developed. The latter was what brought him to the attention of NASA, and brought Lovelock and Sagan to share a desk in an office there.
In addition to Burdon Sanderson and Lister, further successful tests of penicillin were carried out by an Italian, Vincenzo Tiberio in Naples in 1895, and a French Army Doctor named Duchesne, in 1897, who soon after died himself of tuberculosis, but his striking thesis on penicillin predated Fleming’s dabbling and dismissal of it by thirty years.
Sorry for labouring the point, but accepted history is largely myth.
Tony M: Let’s not get started on the Davy lamp, eh mate?
I don’t know about you, but sometimes in my life I have broken all the unspoken rules..You simply do not do that..but I fuckin did..The Rock Festival was quite close to where She Lives..and though we hadn’t seen each other for 33years+ ..and virtually no contact..we found each other on Facebook after all this time..we both had kids after we split ..boy & girl each which we…well anyway..I asked her…Her kids are bit older than mine..Both Did Law..
We were camping..I don’t think she has ever camped in her life..and she turns up at 11:00am in a Thunderstorm at Cambridge Rock Festival..Yes we Did Recognise Each Other..and in the Rains and The Storms…There was nothing else I could do…
My wife was half naked..we had just..oh this is my ex…
My Wife Warmed Her Up and Brought Her In to our Tent..and The Girls Made Friends…
What else can we do?
So far as I can tell we are all human.
Tony