Brian,
Thank you for the kind words.
> David has obviously been rare amongst us to put into practice much
> of what I have been preaching, even before I put it into words and
> I congratulate him for his groundbreaking approach. However, I
> think I do detect a somewhat doomsaying suggestion in his sayings
> that total anarchy will break out as energy becomes scarcer.
I agree with your comment that a "doomsday" or extended chaotic
situation is avoidable but I am driven by two concepts.
1. Plan for the worst and hope for the best.
2. Failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on
my part.
As the months drift by without any serious organized attempt by
governments or business to address these issues the odds that a
"doomsday" and or extended chaotic condition occur increase. It would
be rather foolish not to take action based on available information.
The main idea is to establish a set of "trigger" points
which result in pre-planned actions. Several of these points, I have
established, have already been reached. There are several sets of
points yet to occur.
If they happened then I will continue with my activities. The main
points are based on the value of gold in US dollars and the cost of
oil/gasoline.
I have learned that the price of these two items (oil and gas) can
be manipulated by various means for the purpose of maintaining a
temporary "business as usual" cycle. The costs of these
"manipulations" are carried into the future at increasing amounts.
The US refineries concentrated their efforts on unleaded gas during
the Christmas rush at the expense of heating oil, diesel fuel, and
jet fuel in order to boost sales. Even with this extra effort the
amount of unleaded gas in storage is still 2.2% lower than the 5
year average. They did manage to lower the price temporarily but it
is now climbing.
I am nervous about this coming year due to unstable politics that can
have negative impacts on economies as well as energy supplies. This
can become an out of control downward spiral very quickly!
David A. Douthit
Manager
LoCan LLC
On Dec 31, 2005, at 6:16 AM, Brian Ellis wrote:
> Phil, David, Joe and Brian,
>
> Thank you all for your observations.
>
> Human greed is, indeed, a problem. There was a guy wandering about
> what is now Israel, almost 2000 years ago, who taught Jews,
> Samaritans, Pharisees and so on that greed was not the best way.
> Some of the people agreed with him, even after he was murdered
> cruelly because of his views and history records numerous cases of
> generosity by followers of his teachings. What worries me most
> about it is that many or most of the greediest people in either
> political or industrial power today claim also to follow his
> example, the most powerful amongst them even stating he is a born-
> again Christian. Yet, if I read his Sermon on the Mount in Matthew
> and other teachings, I cannot reconcile this guy's born-again
> greedy Christianity with what the Master he is supposed to be
> following taught. Nor, for that matter, the greed and lack of
> Christian love of the established churches. Personally, I am not a
> religious person; but I never say there is no God, in case He hears
> me. In reality, I do not deny spirituality and I am a lapsed
> Presbyterian church-goer (mainly because of the church's
> materialism. I do not really believe in the divinity of Jesus, but
> I accept wholeheartedly that his teachings were for the good of
> mankind and are as valid today as they were about 1975 years ago,
> as an extension of the basic OT teachings by other men. What he
> taught has been so distorted, today, as to be societally
> unrecognizable. Until we realize this and we all lead our lives as
> Jesus et al. taught us, whether we believe in his divinity and/or
> God or not, I'm afraid greedy materialism will predominate. That is
> why I called my credo a Utopian dream.
>
> David has obviously been rare amongst us to put into practice much
> of what I have been preaching, even before I put it into words and
> I congratulate him for his groundbreaking approach. However, I
> think I do detect a somewhat doomsaying suggestion in his sayings
> that total anarchy will break out as energy becomes scarcer. This
> could happen but it will not be necessary if we take action now. If
> we wait until it is too late, then the "haves" will almost
> certainly become at the mercy of the "have-nots" (and I don't
> necessarily mean $$$ in the bank, because money may become
> worthless). We don't have to go very far back in history to find
> examples. And dare I suggest that if this anarchy does break out,
> it will start in the USA?
>
> Joe has some very interesting ideas but I fear that they are more
> out of my self-imposed environmental/energy purview. Whereas I
> agree that the world's population is more than we can sustain
> without "artificial" energy, I have no suggestions as to how it can
> be controlled without thoughts of Hitlerian dogma or, at the least,
> large numbers suffering from increasing amounts of malnutrition and
> general misery. I agree with him wholeheartedly that armed conflict
> abolition would be a wonderful ideal (just think that if all the
> money ploughed into armaments manufacture and research was
> consecrated into ways of alleviating illness or growing food for
> the world's starving, would not this world be a better place?
> However, that goes far beyond my Utopian dream into something
> approaching Paradise).
>
> Brian, I agree with you generally, but I disagree with you about
> trees being used for sequestration: it would be FAR worse than you
> or Duke University suggest. I think that very few have thought
> about the enormity of sequestration. We are pumping an extra 7
> billion tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere each year, just to
> make us happy with our SUVs, gas burners, coal power stations and
> what have you? Just to break even for a few years during the rapid
> growth period of trees, we would have to plant enough trees to
> produce, say, 20 billion tonnes of wood. This is equivalent to 3¼
> million General Sherman trees per year and just imagine - if you
> can - the area of land necessary to grow that amount of young wood.
> Actually, it is worse than this because leaf/needle rotting will
> release some of its carbon as CH4 and not CO2, much worse as a GHG.
> Then, when we re-use the wood as biofuel, bingo, we release all the
> sequestered anthropogenic carbon again and we are back to square 1.
> See http://www.cypenv.org/Files/sequest.htm.
>
> I have two requests to make of you guys. 1) Please feel free to
> propagate my credo or, preferably, its URL amongst as many as you
> like, including politicians, industry leaders and so on. 2) Please
> feel free to discuss these matters on http://www.cypenv.org/smf/
> index.php?board=21.0. So far, in this holiday period, some 200
> persons have viewed my credo but only one person has profited to
> comment on it on the same website (actually an interesting comment).
>
> Thanks for making your thoughts known to me - I appreciate it.
>
> Happy New Year to you all.
>
> Brian
>
>
>
>
>
> Brian Ellis wrote:
>> As most of you know, I've been heavily involved in the
>> environment, how
>> our use of energy affects it and how we are destroying nature, for
>> many
>> years, on both a high-level professional basis and one of personal
>> conviction. I'm quite aware that many of you do not agree with my
>> views
>> and we must agree to differ. I've been attempting for some time to
>> gel
>> my views into something fairly concrete and the result of this can be
>> found in My Credo at http://www.cypenv.org/Files/credo.htm along
>> with a
>> linked discussion forum. Please feel free to look at this document
>> and,
>> if you feel like it, comment.
>> Brian
>> --
>> ______________________________________________
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>
> --
> ______________________________________________
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>
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