Short Quiz - This Month's "Pot Stirrers"

[johnkarls]

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1. What/who is/are the world's largest carbon polluters?

2. If we environmentalists continue to oppose everything, who will we task with informing much (if not most) of the world's mushrooming population that their lives will have to be terminated in order to reduce global warming because human beings emit too much carbon dioxide?

3. Who was the head of the American delegation at Kyoto?

4. What negotiating restrictions were imposed on him before he left for Kyoto by a 95-0 vote of the U.S. Senate, which would have to ratify any treaty?

5. Because of his defiance of these restrictions (Al Gore agreed to exempting both India and China, in addition to an overall program that would, according to the econometric model of the U.S. Department of Energy, have reduced the U.S. standard of living by 30%), how many years remained in the Clinton Administration during which President Clinton refused to send Kyoto to the Senate for ratification?

6. Has cap-and-trade been a success in Europe?

7. Why has cap-and-trade been such an abysmal failure in Europe?

8. Why was President Obama's cap-and-trade proposal defeated by a bi-partisan revolt in Congress?

9. How many coal-fired electricity-generation mega-plants does China construct per day?

10. Who is in favor of invading China to prevent them from building coal-fired plants?

11. Is there likely to be a solution to global warming that is not economic?

12. How much of the world's oil production would be shut in if the world price for oil were cut in half by competition from a new non-carbon power source? By 75%?

13. Ditto for coal?

14. What is our author's position on nuclear energy?

15. What is our author's position on banning plug-in electric vehicles (as distinguished from hybrids which generate their own electricity from the waste heat of their gasoline engines) until the last coal-fired electricity-generating plant is removed from the grid?

16. What "elephant in the room" or, in reality, what "elephants" on our coasts produce more pollution than the nation's vehicles?

17. What is the position of our author on the "elephants" on our coasts?

18. What is our author's position on flaring natural gas?

19. What are the reasons why so much "associated gas" has to be flared? What is a "swing refinery"?

20. What is the economic impediment to liquefying natural gas in order to transport it in ocean-going LNG ("liquid natural gas") carriers?

21. What is the political impediment to constructing pipelines that cross as few as one international border?

22. What is our author's position on building gas-fired electricity-generating plants to replace coal-fired plants no matter how new?

23. Isn't natural gas, like coal, a carbon polluter?

24. What is our author's position on hydraulic fracturing in order to produce the American "ocean" of natural gas?

25. What does our author think of "Gasland" - the Sundance Film Festival documentary on hydraulic fracturing necessary to produce the American "ocean" of natural gas?

26. Why has President Obama "carried water" for the American coal industry since he was an Illinois state senator?

27. Why did President Obama recently approve massive coal mining in Montana for export to China to feed its new coal-fired electricity-generating mega-plants that are coming on stream at the rate of one/day?

28. What is most surprising about the West Coast of Scotland for first-time visitors? What is the latitude of London compared to the North American East Coast? What is the significance of these two questions to Western European sensitivity to the global-warming issue?

29. What country's vote was the long-awaited final vote needed for ratification of Kyoto?

30. What was the "real-politik" reason for the massive payments that Europe would be making to Russia if it finally voted for Kyoto?

31. Did Russia's Putin oppose Kyoto because he really thought global warming would be beneficial to Russia because it would increase agricultural production in Siberia, or was he just being a typically-good Russian negotiator who was trying to get Europe to increase their subsidies of Russia under Kyoto?

32. Does our author make a convincing case for doing something about global warming? Or is this just another example of winners and losers with the Russia's of the world thanking their good fortune for the increased agricultural output in Siberia and the Venice's of the world finally building a Dutch-style dike to enclose the narrow opening of their lagoon to the sea which they should already have done 100 years ago due to the sinking of the city in the mud?

33. What does our author say about the possibly non-linear relationship between carbon pollution and global warming? About the possibly reinforcing effects of global warming on various things that themselves then warp back to have an impact on global warming?

34. What does our author say about investigating other scientific solutions to global warming that might be more cost effective -- such as the possibility of dispersing small particles of highly-reflectant matter into the earth's outer atmosphere?

35. Is the NY Times' Thomas Friedman really so naïve that he thinks that if the U.S. ever invented a non-carbon method for producing power that under-priced coal and oil & gas, etc., that American jobs would be created??? Has he been blind to the fact that American- and European-based multi-national companies would immediately produce whatever is needed in China and other low-labor-cost countries??? And that if the manufacturing process is fairly simple with little by way of continuing technological improvements, the world's most prolific pirate (the Chinese vis-à-vis intellectual property) would simply proceed in short order to steal the IP from the MNC's???

36. Over what issue are the Germans and French at each other's throats again??? Are the hostilities likely to boil over into military action?

37. And for fun, why was Edo re-named Tokyo when the Japanese Emperor long ago moved his court from Kyoto to Edo???

38. And for additional fun without breaking the 40-question barrier for the first time, why doesn't our author think that America's vehicles emit carbon monoxide??? Is this just another case of "my shit doesn't stink"???

[BillLee]

Unfortunately I will be in Denver on July 13th. I find this doubly distressing. For one I will miss the wonderful company of the folks who attend RL. Secondly there is something particularly ominous that could take place in my absence. I don’t think it is at all farfetched for me to anticipate the resurgence of a “6% of separation campaign” to institute huge gas taxes (poor folks who depend on their vehicles for their livelihood and can hardly afford those taxes be damned).
In anticipation I will again suggest that “need based gas rationing” and luxury taxes on gas guzzling vehicles could be tailored to produce (at least a portion of) the same positive results without abandoning those who would be put on the street by indiscriminate massive gas tax increases. Yes; Truckers, small business, and others.
I will also anticipate the same ridicule that resulted when last I mentioned this subject. As such I will say the following:
1. My rationing suggestion is not meant to be easily instituted, free from resistance, or completely flawless. It is merely meant as a fledgling proposal illustrating that we could find solutions that are humane (the wealthy be damned).
2. Massive gas taxes would only be minutely more easily instituted. The resistance would be monumental. I would cite The Presidents recent announcement of planned releases of strategic petroleum reserves as evidence.
3. Many of the points dismissing my suggestion seemed to be meant to entertain or misdirect, and were often at best off point and at worst highly disputable.
4. Advanced degrees from heralded institutions are not used to suggest superiority in polite society. Logic and knowledge are not exclusive to those who wave them.