Heating Your Greenhouse in Europe This Winter

[Robert_Parks]

Bottom line - if we stop extracting oil and gas, the world would cease to exist in any form even remotely similar to what we know now.
Imagine, no PVC for electrical insulation - imagine how much tropical jungle would have to be felled to return to rubber insulation - current production is around 14-15 milion tonnes per year produced on 10 million hectares (100,000 square km), PVC is 50-60 million tonnes and is used for pipes for every conceivable use, as well as electrical insulation.

I don't think anyone is seriously pushing the end of oil extraction, just reducing the amount of that production that is burned and turned into CO2. As you point out there are an enormous amount of useful stuff made from extracted crude...and many of those products sequester carbon in a more or less long term way.
Also, by the application of heat, pressure, and catalysts, excess production can be converted to other (longer or shorter chain) products, so there isn't likely to be a great excess of mid-chain length petrochemicals.
For myself, I am awaiting the year when my car gets a plug in hybrid option...additional range for the long trips, but the ability to run on batteries for routine town trips...not to mention that my employer encourages charging cars on their dime!

Save the oil for useful high value products!

[CG100]

I don't think anyone is seriously pushing the end of oil extraction

Some lunatic groups in the UK are - "Just Stop Oil" for one.

[MarcR]

If we don't transition away from carbon based fuels, 1/3 of the populated ares of our planet will be uninhabitable in 10 years.

[Bern]

AFAIK the ice completely covered England, leaving just a little be of Ireland. Hence there's no natural vegetation over 10K years old.

I presumed that the north polar ice cap and glaciers was circumglobal during the later part of the Pleistocene and your information helps to confirm it.  I wonder what the ice shelf was like at the South Pole at this time?

Anyway, the point is that the global warming that occurred during the latter Pleistocene that concluded about 11,000 years ago was not caused by humans because there were too few of them to make an impact based on their living conditions, which were very primitive by today's standards.  It was a natural event and it appears to have been of a far greater magnitude than anything that is happening now.  If today's warming is caused by a similar natural event and the reduction of CO2 and other greenhouse gases are not the causative agents, much futile mischief will be the result.

Bottom line - if we stop extracting oil and gas, the world would cease to exist in any form even remotely similar to what we know now.

CG0.1K is spot on in his assessment.

[MarcR]

I don't think any sane person wants to ban extraction!  I think it is necessary to ban most combustion!

Bren,

The post Pleistocene warming also left much of the world uninhabitable.

Most climatologists believe that carbon emissions are driving global warming now. I don't think that the ostrich has the best defensive strategy. 

[David Pilling]

Google says there are only 50 years of oil left, ISTR Sheikh Yamani saying that oil was too valuable to burn. If you want to use oil for all those other useful purposes perhaps it should not be used for fuel.

It will run out one day and alternatives will have to be found - from that point of view the work on alternatives is a good idea. But of course not worth ruining life for people in a few countries so that the many will benefit one day.

There are people who say, the UK invented the industrial revolution and it is right the UK now pay the price by pioneering non-carbon energy.

People back in the 70s thought there was only 30 years oil left - "peak oil" keeps moving forward. When I'm watching my TV And a man comes on and tells me what is going to happen, what makes him any more accurate than the ones way back, who got it wrong.

It is an old story but true that they used to tell us there was a new ice age imminent.

In 2000, Sheikh Yamani, former oil minister of Saudi Arabia, gave an interview in which he said:

"Thirty years from now there will be a huge amount of oil – and no buyers. Oil will be left in the ground. The Stone Age came to an end, not because we had a lack of stones, and the oil age will come to an end not because we have a lack of oil."

I wonder what the ice shelf was like at the South Pole at this time?

The view from above the south pole is always interesting. Was once a trick of a piece of software that I wrote.


Wikipedia says

"During the last glacial period, Antarctica was blanketed by a massive ice sheet, much as it is today; however, the ice covered all land areas and extended into the ocean onto the middle and outer continental shelf.[34][35] Counterintuitively though, according to ice modeling done in 2002, ice over central East Antarctica was generally thinner than it is today."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Glacial_Period#:~:text=During%20the%20last%20glacial%20period%2C%20Antarctica%20was%20blanketed%20by%20a,middle%20and%20outer%20continental%20shelf.

[CG100]

I don't think any sane person wants to ban extraction!

As I said above - lots in the UK do. We had major protests here to stop the issue of futher exploration permits for new oil and gas.

If you are suggesting that they are all insane, I would dispute that - they are massively ill and under-informed and naive on a scale that defies belief. But not insane.

Where does Ms Thunberg stand on this? I strongly suspect that she is as astonishly, mind-numbingly naive as the rest of them.

[CG100]

Google says there are only 50 years of oil left,

This comes up time after time and when you get to ask people who actually know what they are talking about, this figure is based on obscure science linked to known deposits.

Real estimates totally dwarf that.

Stone was never part of 90++++% of everyday life. Materials derived from natural gas and crude oil are very much so today.

[Bern]

they are massively ill and under-informed and naive on a scale that defies belief

Touche! Very well put.

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.  WB Yeats - The Second Coming - written in 1919 and influenced by WWI and the Russian revolution. 

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43290/the-second-coming

Much remains the same.

[MarcR]

I don't think any sane person wants to ban extraction!

.....

If you are suggesting that they are all insane, I would dispute that - they are massively ill and under-informed and naive on a scale that defies belief. But not insane.   .....

Herein lies the difference between the legal definition and the colloquial definition of insanity.  In Colloquial usage, any irrational thought or belief may be thought of as insane; while such irrational thinking would certainly not be sufficient to have a person committed.

[Bern]

Russia says genetic tests confirm Prigozhin died in plane crash
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-investigators-confirm-wagner-mercenary-chief-prigozhin-died-plane-crash-2023-08-27/

Why am I not surprised?

[David Pilling]

Why am I not surprised?

We thought he was dead, until they told us he was dead, then we knew he was alive.

I've heard it said that he has been dead since the day of the mutiny. Then people believe he has a dead man's switch, which when activated will release компромат on Putin.

Did he have a sense of humour, seems to have been the subject of lots of jokey material in the newspapers "What rotten luck" was one headline above a photo of the aircraft remains.

Nervous laughter amongst those who are safe.

During WW2, children's comics in Great Britain had strips featuring "Musso", "Adie" and "Hermy".

How does this Mafia state where no one tells the truth and nothing is as it seems win the war. By losing it?

[Bern]

We thought he was dead, until they told us he was dead, then we knew he was alive.

I've heard it said that he has been dead since the day of the mutiny.

How does this Mafia state where no one tells the truth and nothing is as it seems win the war. By losing it?

All three of the above are excellent observations. I hadn't seen any "live" video of the guy since the mutiny. I was wondering if someone was going to publish a series of puzzle books like "Where's Wally?" (Where's Waldo? in the USA), but title it "Where's Yevgeny?"

I would vote that statement #2 above is the correct one.  The Russian state eliminates people it considers traitors, or at least tries to do so, as the experiences of Alexander Litvinenko and the Skripals in the UK demonstrated, much to the vexation of MI5, MI6, MOD, and others.

My Ukrainian friend at the park where I walk told me last week in his very broken English that Russia took care of Napoleon and Hitler when they came to Russia, and Russia will now take care of NATO.  We'll see.....  But whoever "wins' it will by a Pyrrhic victory - a true wasteland will be what remains. 

"Truth is treason in an empire of lies" - as Dr. Ron Paul likes to say.  How can you believe anything said by a Mafia State?

[Bern]

It's early in the US hurricane season and a Category 3 storm named Idalia will hit the Gulf Coast of Florida tomorrow with 125mph winds. It will impact the people living in Tallahassee, Jacksonville, Savannah, and Myrtle Beach, and points in between. 

Zoom Earth has the best satellite images and up to date tracking information on this storm.  You can also see Hurricane Franklin in the Atlantic out by Bermuda on this animated gif.

https://zoom.earth/storms/idalia-2023/

The National Weather Service has a good map of Idalia's path and all of the relevant warning information as well.

https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at5+shtml/114952.shtml?cone#contents

Tropical Tidbits has a nice animated gif without the storm tracks.

https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/sat/satlooper.php?region=atlpac-wide&product=truecolor

There's still 3 months left in the Atlantic hurricane season.

[Bern]

There's another storm now forming in the Atlantic that is projected to become a major hurricane that could affect the US East Coast early next week, and it could be a whopper. It is currently designated as Tropical Depression 13.  

Here's the current trajectory from the National Weather Service.

https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at3+shtml/145817.shtml?cone#contents

And here's the Atlantic wide video from Tropical Tidbits.

https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/sat/satlooper.php?region=atl&product=truecolor

More on this as it develops.