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The Guardian - 28/06/12

Rex Tillerson acknowledges man-made global warming in speech, but says society will adapt to climate change.

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In a speech on Wednesday, Tillerson acknowledged that burning of fossil fuels is warming the planet, but said society will be able to adapt.

The risks of oil and gas drilling are well understood and can be mitigated, he said.

And dependence on other nations for oil is not a concern as long as access to supply is certain, he said.

What a tw@t!

This is progress - ExxonMobil/Tillerson are now, finally, admitting man made climate change is real. Took a while but we got there in the end.

Society will be able to adapt? Progress?

Well, it's sort of true isn't it, just avoiding mention of the abject horror and misery the human race will experience whilst it adapts. We may very well adapt to living within the shrinking ecological limits, perhaps going from a population of 7 billion to one of half a million.

Stats made up on the spot, no science required.

Tillerson:

"We have spent our entire existence adapting. We'll adapt," he said. "It's an engineering problem and there will be an engineering solution."

Technology to the rescue? I think not.

We've past the tipping point and misplaced optimism isn't going to solve anything.

Has 'technology' ever provided a lasting and beneficial solution to anything?

I remember on an African music forum some time ago, an African (bit of a racist, if truth be known) wrote that Europeans may have discovered penicillin and invented computers and the worldwide web but Africans had perfected music. I thought at the time that penicillin and computers really bear no comparison to music when it comes to end-product: overpopulation misery and super-fast economic chaos and, above all, the false expectation of an ever-better future vs. a really good dance; I know which I'd choose!

Yeees...but there's quite a bit of technology gone into making my guitar strings.

And there's more to a Zildjian cymbal than meets the eye.

Aurora wrote:Tillerson:

"We have spent our entire existence adapting. We'll adapt," he said. "It's an engineering problem and there will be an engineering solution."

Technology to the rescue? I think not.

We've past the tipping point and misplaced optimism isn't going to solve anything.

Completely agree. For too many years all the 'technology' has been computer orientated, the 'rocket scientists' have gone into banking, the companies that used to make real cutting edge equipment have folded or are a shadow of their former selves.

I strongly suspect that the only engineering solution will involve handling unnumbered corpses

SleeperService wrote:

Aurora wrote:Tillerson:

"We have spent our entire existence adapting. We'll adapt," he said. "It's an engineering problem and there will be an engineering solution."

Technology to the rescue? I think not.

We've past the tipping point and misplaced optimism isn't going to solve anything.

Completely agree. For too many years all the 'technology' has been computer orientated, the 'rocket scientists' have gone into banking, the companies that used to make real cutting edge equipment have folded or are a shadow of their former selves.

I strongly suspect that the only engineering solution will involve handling unnumbered corpses

Indeed 'miniaturisation' has been one of the only avenues of development that really paying dividends over the last couple of decades. However - there's plenty of seriously clever science/engineering going into arms (where most the UK's efforts are spent) and this merry jaunt is taking some seriously engineering to pull off:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzqdoXwLBT8

clv101 wrote:Indeed 'miniaturisation' has been one of the only avenues of development that really paying dividends over the last couple of decades. However - there's plenty of seriously clever science/engineering going into arms (where most the UK's efforts are spent) and this merry jaunt is taking some seriously engineering to pull off:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzqdoXwLBT8

Chris, before retiring, I spent my whole career in the sciences and I'm seriously impressed by the video but I'm also old enough to recognise that the application of many such sciences has had a deleterious effect on both mankind and the planet.

Also, when Tillerson states "It's an engineering problem and there will be an engineering solution", the one thing he's forgotten to factor in is the inevitable decline in R&D funding which will surely follow as PO becomes more evident.

In the longer term, our beautiful planet will heal itself.

Fortunately, mankind won't be around to witness it.

SleeperService wrote: the 'rocket scientists' have gone into banking,

I woke this morning to hear somebody on Radio 4 Today Programmes business bit about 6.15 saying he used to be a banker but was now about to launch a series of three communications satellites to bring broadband to southern Africa and who employed 128 rocket scientists in England.

Just saying.

06:15? Are you sure you were actually awake at the time??

I heard it too.

He said it the technology was a quarter the price of existing satellite phones.

A quarter of more money than the average African makes in a lifetime is still a lot of money.

biffvernon wrote:

SleeperService wrote: the 'rocket scientists' have gone into banking,

I woke this morning to hear somebody on Radio 4 Today Programmes business bit about 6.15 saying he used to be a banker but was now about to launch a series of three communications satellites to bring broadband to southern Africa and who employed 128 rocket scientists in England.

Just saying.

OK most of the rocket scientists are in banking. A lot of the rest emigrate. I suspect a lot of the 128 will be university students working in coventure university companies. Here's what we could do 40+ years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prospero_X-3

Even though the cost will still be expensive I think that government use would make it a worthwhile investment.