REPRISE: Solving Global Warming 100% Without Military Action

.
*****
NEXT MEETING

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN TO THE NINTH (FIRST UNNUMBERED) SECTION BELOW FOR INFORMATION ABOUT OUR NEXT MEETING.


*****
WHO/WHAT WE ARE

We are a U.S. public-policy monthly discussion group founded in the Fall of 2005 that meets on the third Wednesday of each month (with adjustments to avoid secular/religious holidays).

Since February 2020, we have met via Zoom. [For the first 14.5 years of our existence, we met at the Salt Lake City Library (210 East 400 South) with remote participation via Skype.]

The topic is selected by the attendees of the previous month’s meeting. The focus is usually a book but frequently comprises only news items from magazines/newspapers/etc. This bulletin board serves, inter alia, as a place for members to post comments or additional reference materials prior to each meeting.

Our attendance averages 11-12. Participants come from all walks of life but our regular attendees include 4 attorneys and 3 scientists.

There are approx. 225 recipients of our weekly newsletter, many of whom reside outside Utah and participate by Zoom.

*****
40 SIX-DEGREES-OF-SEPARATION E-MAIL CAMPAIGNS, 4 REPORTS & 9 REPRISES

We take great pride in our Six-Degrees-Of-Separation E-mail campaigns to America's decision makers which, with only a few computer keyboard key strokes, can be sent by each of our members (1) to the decision maker, and (2) to all of the member's friends and acquaintances requesting them to do the same in an unending chain.

Accordingly, we also take great pride that each of our official recommendations has been approved unanimously at one of our meetings or, at most, received only one dissent.

All 40 e-mail campaigns over the years are collected in this section. They include 10 e-mails sent by John Karls that did not receive an official endorsement for the rest of our members to send. The titles of the 30 official recommendations are ALL CAPS and the titles of 10 unofficial recommendations are lower case.

The date of the meeting at which each of the 40 campaigns was adopted is listed so that voluminous additional information about that campaign can be accessed by scrolling down to the sections of this bulletin board that relate to that meeting.

In addition, there are four items whose descriptions begin with “REPORT.” They are reports of our Great Salt Lake Working Group which was formed IAW our “Short-Time Fuse” procedures described in the next section of this bulletin board.

There is also a 1/20/2021 “Report” of our JCPOA Working Group.

Finally, there are eight items whose descriptions begin with “REPRISE.” They describe additional actions that were taken IAW previous official e-mail campaigns to bring their approved policies to the attention of additional decision makers.

*****
SIGNING UP FOR OUR WEEKLY E-MAIL

If you would like to receive our weekly newsletter, please send an e-mail to ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com with a subject, “Please Add Me To Weekly E-mail List.”

*****
SIGNING UP TO POST ON THIS BULLETIN BOARD

Due to sabotage and porn attacks, only attendees of one or more of our meetings are permitted to post on this bulletin board.

If you have attended one of our meetings and would like to register to post something, please send an E-mail to ReadingLiberally-SaltLake@johnkarls.com with the subject, “Please Register Me For The Bulletin Board.”
Locked
johnkarls
Posts: 2038
Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

REPRISE: Solving Global Warming 100% Without Military Action

Post by johnkarls »

.
----------
Editorial Comment: A 2/9/2018 follow-up e-mail was sent to Prof. McElroy after his 2/8/2018 presentation to the Harvard Club of NYC. The follow-up appears below the following posting in a so-called “reply.”
----------

---------------------------- Original Message -----------------------------
Subject: Your Harvard Club of NYC Presentation Next Thursday
From: john@johnkarls.com
Date: Fri, January 26, 2018 11:34 pm EST
To: mbm@seas.harvard.edu
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harvard Club – Box 126
27 West 44th Street
New York, NY 10036
January 26, 2018


Prof. Michael B. McElroy
Gilbert Butler Professor of Environmental Studies – Harvard U.
Chair of the Harvard University-wide Committee on the Environment
Pierce Hall 109
Cambridge MA 02138

Dear Sir:

The February Bulletin of the Harvard Club of NYC was received by e-mail earlier today.

It lists a presentation by you at 7:00 pm next Thursday evening (Feb 8th) on the subject “Climate Change: Real or Hoax.”

However, the title of your presentation implies that you and your Harvard-wide Committee on the Environment are FAILING to address the issue of “Solving Global Warming 100% Without Military Action.”

Details are contained in the following e-mail to the Senior Counselor to the U.S. President.

Could you please provide your reaction?

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

John S. Karls
JD, Harvard Law School, 1967
Who’s Who in American Law, 1988-2003
Who’s Who in America, 1988-2003
Who’s Who in the World, 1994-2003

---------------------------- Original Message -----------------------------
Subject: Message for The Hon. Ivanka Trump – Senior Counselor to the U.S. President
From: john@johnkarls.com
Date: Wed, September 20, 2017 5:14 pm EDT
To: info@ivankatrump.com
Attachment:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harvard Club – Box 126
27 West 44th Street
New York, NY 10036
September 20, 2017


The Honorable Ivanka Trump
Senior Counselor to the President of the United States
c/o Ivanka Trump Headquarters
New York, NY

Dear Ms. Trump:

Re: Solving Global Warming Without Having To Invade Militarily Such Countries As China

For the past 12 years, I have facilitated a public-policy study group in the vicinity of my Utah ski house comprising approximately 150 members including numerous science professors and including a PhD in Nuclear Engineering from the U.S. National Nuclear-Research Laboratory at Oak Ridge TN.

[Our Nuclear Engineering PhD has led several of our studies over the years concerning thorium fission and other nuclear issues.]

Every time our group has focused on global warming, I have begun the discussion by asking for a show of hands by anyone who favors invading militarily, for example, China to prevent it from bringing on stream every week one new monster-size coal-burning electrical-power generation plant.

In all of those meetings over the years, nobody has ever shown the slightest interest in using military force to coerce any country into using an uneconomic energy source, thereby reducing the standard of living of its citizens.

However, luckily there is an economic energy source that is abundant and safe.

You may not be aware that thorium/fission was proved feasible in the 1960’s when the U.S. National Nuclear-Research Laboratory at Oak Ridge TN conducted a successful 18-month continuous demonstration project comprising a thorium nuclear reactor. And that President Nixon caused the nation to turn away from thorium (and toward uranium and plutonium) because thorium is incapable of producing an explosion.

Both conventional uranium fission and proven thorium/fission share all of the following advantages: (a) producing no greenhouse gases; (b) eliminating the dependence of the U.S. and its allies on members of OPEC (the long-standing Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries) and, in the case of Europe, natural gas imports from Russia (in addition to oil & gas imports from OPEC); and (c) eliminating the gaping U.S. balance-of-payments deficit and resulting piling up of our foreign national debt.

However, proven thorium/fission has the following advantages over conventional uranium/fission –

(1) LFTR’s (Liquid Floride Thorium Reactors) require minimal containment chambers because meltdowns are physically impossible since LFTR’s operate near atmospheric pressure (this is both a safety and cost factor).

(2) LFTR’s do not require elaborate cooling systems because they operate well below the boiling point of molten salt and can be passively cooled (this is also both a safety and cost factor).

(3) Thorium is so stable that, as mentioned above, it is impossible to make a nuclear weapon from thorium which is why the U.S. turned to uranium and plutonium instead of thorium.

(4) Thorium has such an incredibly-high “burn-up” that there is virtually no long-lived radioactive waste.

(5) LFTR’s can safely consume uranium from decommissioned nuclear warheads and from spent uranium-reactor fuel rods. Indeed, the Oak Ridge MSRE in the 1960’s was able to use U-235, Pu-239 and U-233 at the same time as thorium. [NB: Since former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of NV prevented the opening of Yucca Mountain NV as the repository for our spent uranium-nuclear fuel rods, the spent uranium-nuclear fuel rods have been left on site at each uranium-nuclear plant to remain cool in the equivalent of home swimming-pools even though many of those uranium-nuclear plants are situated in high-volume air corridors!!!]

(6) Because LFTR’s are economically practical in small sizes, they can be mass-produced in factories and assembled near electrical demand so that the huge energy losses during electricity transmission are virtually eliminated -- though to replace huge uranium reactors, it would only be necessary to assemble several of the small modular thorium reactors into a larger plant.

(7) In addition, thorium is so plentiful that proven thorium supplies are capable of supplying 100% of the world’s energy (not just electricity) for more than 1,000 years. Indeed, virtually all of India’s “sand” beaches comprise thorium.

[Our calculation was 80 years of “proven” reserves of uranium for current (electricity only) usage multiplied by 3 (the minimum abundance factor of “proven” thorium reserves vs. “proven” uranium reserves) multiplied by 99 (usable thorium energy content vs. usable uranium energy content) multiplied by 5.8% (the percentage of total worldwide energy including transportation fuels, that comes from nuclear plants) = 1,378 years.]

*****
Proven thorium/fission has all of these advantages and only needs 2-3 years of final development = the equivalent of having already produced a Ford Model T proving an automobile is feasible but still needing 2-3 years of development (and relatively-modest funding) to design a Ford Fusion for mass production.

The relatively-modest funding for the 2-3 years of final development has been estimated at $5 billion to build the first commercial prototype.

Which is why our group conducted on this subject two of its so-called Six-Degrees-of-Separation E-mail Campaigns pursuant to which each of our 150 members was encouraged to, with only a few computer keyboard key strokes, send an already-prepared e-mail to the decision maker and to send the request to all of their friends/acquaintances to do the same in an unending chain so that, in theory, the decision maker would have received 320 million petitions in short order.

The first followed our 10/10/2012 meeting and was directed to DOE Secretary Stephen Chu because DOE’s Discretionary Budget for FY 2012 (dated February 2012 and posted on the DOE website) contained $29.5 billion of discretionary funding which comprised many categories from which LFTR research and development could have come, such as Energy Transformation Acceleration ($5.4 billion), Energy Efficiency ($3.2 billion), and Environmental Management ($6.1 billion).

And since DOE Secretary Chu failed to take action, our second e-mail campaign following our 11/23/2013 meeting was directed to President Obama.

Unfortunately, President Obama condemned America --

(1) to continue kowtowing to oil-exporting countries (including Russia with its natural gas exports to Europe).

(2) to go on importing half of its oil & gas requirements (and the resulting piling up of foreign-held U.S. debt).

(3) to continue polluting the atmosphere with carbon.

[With regard to the last point, each of our participants has always recognized that many, if not most, of the world’s nations will refuse to halt carbon pollution unless the solution is cheaper than any alternative and each of us has always admitted that we would not favor invading militarily other countries -- such as China to prevent it from bringing on line one new monster-sized coal-fired electric-generation plant every week.]

I am sorry to burden you with this information, but there have been numerous news reports about the time that the Trump Administration was considering withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord that you and your husband actually opposed withdrawal. And Congress and the Administration are currently hashing out the details of the U.S. Government’s budget for its impending fiscal year.

And I am sorry to inconvenience your commercial organization with forwarding this e-mail to you, but there was no way on the WhiteHouse.gov website to direct a message to you.

[At least I am not burdening your commercial organization with a Six-Degrees-Of-Separation E-mail Campaign that would result in a considerable number of identical e-mails.]

Thank you for your consideration!!! And good luck to you in all of your activities and with all of your responsibilities!!!

Respectfully submitted,

John S. Karls
JD, Harvard Law School, 1967
Who’s Who in American Law, 1988-2003
Who’s Who in America, 1988-2003
Who’s Who in the World, 1994-2003

johnkarls
Posts: 2038
Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:43 pm

Follow-Up E-mail to Prof. McElroy After His Presentation

Post by johnkarls »

.
---------------------------- Original Message -----------------------------
Subject: Your Harvard Club of NYC Presentation Last Evening
From: john@johnkarls.com
Date: Fri, February 9, 2018 7:04 am EST
To: mbm@seas.harvard.edu
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harvard Club – Box 126
27 West 44th Street
New York, NY 10036
February 9, 2018


Prof. Michael B. McElroy
Gilbert Butler Professor of Environmental Studies – Harvard U.
Chair of the Harvard University-wide Committee on the Environment
Pierce Hall 109
Cambridge MA 02138

Dear Sir:

Before presuming upon your time to read this e-mail, please permit me to establish my credentials as someone who wishes well both you and the objective of solving global warming 100% as soon as possible.

The U.N. Under-Secretary General for the Environment personally requested me to raise funds for UNEP after I finished serving in the 1990’s as the volunteer national treasurer for Eugene Lang’s “I Have A Dream”® Foundation because I had been such an effective fund-raiser for both IHAD-National and my own IHAD-Stamford.

[IHAD-Stamford was one of 178 such projects in 51 American cities during the 1990’s and IHAD-Stamford provided tutoring/mentoring for 200 children living in public-housing projects as they progressed from third grade through high school graduation with a guarantee of college tuition -- I had only provided half of the funding required for IHAD-Stamford and had raised the remainder from some of the world’s wealthiest people who tend to be widows and who tend to be intrigued by someone who appears to help females by tossing more than 3,000 bouquets over more decades than I would care to admit to opera stars and ballerinas.]

So, of course, I was delighted to suggest UNEP to wealthy friends whenever they were in a charitable mood.

But on to my message of “tough love”!!!

As suggested in my 1/26/2018 e-mail to you which, for your convenience, follows immediately below, the problem with the Paris Climate Accord (which was also true of the Kyoto Protocol) is the attempt to get zillions of countries to voluntarily act against their own economic self-interest.

This, of course, enables critics to characterize America’s participation in the Paris Climate Accord as a commitment to “jump over the economic cliff” now in return for the commitments of other nations to “jump over the economic cliff” in the distant future.

So how can global warming be solved 100% almost immediately???

By championing an energy source which, in addition to being safe, is so cheap that all of the world’s nations will embrace it in their own economic self-interest.

The salient details are contained in my 1/26/2018 e-mail to you which follows immediately below.

Since you did not respond prior to your presentation last evening, I did not attend out of respect for your apparent desire to concentrate on the question posed by the title of your presentation (“Climate Change: Real or Hoax”), rather than address what should be done if it is not a hoax.

Now it is time for you to consider what should be done about it.

If you have any questions or comments, I would be delighted to assist in any way possible.

Sincerely,

John S. Karls
JD, Harvard Law School, 1967
Who’s Who in American Law, 1988-2003
Who’s Who in America, 1988-2003
Who’s Who in the World, 1994-2003


[Thereupon followed the 1/26/2018 e-mail to Prof. McElroy that appears above in the posting to which this "reply" is made.]

Locked

Return to “Section 1 – General Info + Info Re Next Meeting”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 5 guests