THE UK IS SAVED!!!!

[Greenbeast]

i guess the point is not so much that we stole them, rather we never gave them back (like the rest of the empire)

[fifthcolumn]

This is not new news.
I've been invested in a company out there for more than five years.
The 60 billion barrels is speculation and it never really seems to materialise. They've been doing test drilling for quite some time (three years) but haven't managed to get any production rigs in place.
Yet they keep releasing press reports every so often.

I wonder why that is?

Not that I'm 100% skeptical. I *want* to believe the oil is there and so do everybody else in the falklands but it's been a long time coming.
Don't hold your breath.

As for the 60 billion barrels.
Remember we are a nuclear armed industrial nations with the world's fifth biggest army. If we don't want to sell the oil nobody will make us.
60 billion barrels will last the UK quite some time.

[clv101]

Notwithstanding this news, can someone fill me in on exactly why these islands should be part of the UK?

It's historic innit. And in 1982 when the last invasion happened Dennis Thatcher thought they were somewhere off the coast of Scotland (allegedly)

I thought that was Adrian Mole's Dad?

I *want* to believe the oil is there and so do everybody else in the falklands but it's been a long time coming.

How does wanting more oil to become available square with the need to reduce global CO2 emissions?

[emordnilap]

I *want* to believe the oil is there and so do everybody else in the falklands but it's been a long time coming.

How does wanting more oil to become available square with the need to reduce global CO2 emissions?

Answer: it doesn't. All extractable fossil fuels are coming out and being burnt. We, the concerned, have no choice in the matter.

[Totally_Baffled]

How does wanting more oil to become available square with the need to reduce global CO2 emissions?

As long as we give up a bit of coal to offset - what is the problem?

I know which one is harder to "do without"!

One other thing - I agree the 60 billion figure is pulled out of the USGS's arse, BUT if we could get 200k a day of production out of it for 50 years - it would make one hell of a difference to our post peak decent???

[clv101]

I *want* to believe the oil is there and so do everybody else in the falklands but it's been a long time coming.

How does wanting more oil to become available square with the need to reduce global CO2 emissions?

Answer: it doesn't. All extractable fossil fuels are coming out and being burnt. We, the concerned, have no choice in the matter.

I agree that the reality of the situation is that all extractable oil at least is coming out to be burnt - that however is not the same as saying you "*want* to believe the oil is there". If we're serious about CO2, we shouldn't want more fossil fuel to be available than we already know about. In fact we should want mistakes to have been made, we should want extractable reserves to be less than previously thought not more.

Do we want there to be 250 years of coal or do we want coal peak by 2030? The latter surely?

[biffvernon]

The more oil we burn, the more the climate warms, the stormier the seas around the Islas Malvinas get, the harder it will be to get the oil out.

A negative feedback mechanism discovered at last.

[fifthcolumn]

How does wanting more oil to become available square with the need to reduce global CO2 emissions?

For me it's priorities.
Although I believe GW is real, it's the #2 threat in terms of how soon it will hit.
If we freeze to death next winter because we stop using oil we can't solve the GW problem thus for me it's crucial we solve peak oil first.

My own take (and if you choose to flame me go ahead) is that we cannot solve global warming by all becoming neo-serfs growing vegetables in our backgardens. Civilisation MUST continue because we need to be able to mitigate the risk of us already having crossed a tipping point to the new eocene thermal maximum. If we are already past the tipping point we need to advance in technology and ability enough to reverse it.
If not we are dead.

That's my take.

[RenewableCandy]

I take it FifthC that you are further above sea-level than I am (14 metres).

[fifthcolumn]

I take it FifthC that you are further above sea-level than I am (14 metres).

Probably.

The issue I see reaches pretty far back.

As soon as we overhunted the steppes 30,000 years ago and started with agriculture our fate was sealed.

Humans are technological animals. Even our teeth are crooked because we cook our food.

Without technology we are doomed. Technology will save us or we die.
It's that simple.

[clv101]

How does wanting more oil to become available square with the need to reduce global CO2 emissions?

For me it's priorities.
Although I believe GW is real, it's the #2 threat in terms of how soon it will hit.
If we freeze to death next winter because we stop using oil we can't solve the GW problem thus for me it's crucial we solve peak oil first.

My own take (and if you choose to flame me go ahead) is that we cannot solve global warming by all becoming neo-serfs growing vegetables in our backgardens. Civilisation MUST continue because we need to be able to mitigate the risk of us already having crossed a tipping point to the new eocene thermal maximum. If we are already past the tipping point we need to advance in technology and ability enough to reverse it.
If not we are dead.

That's my take.

CO2 is identified as the cause of climate change. Climate change is identified as being a serious problem. It sounds like your solution is to attempt to carry on doing what we're doing - wish for even more CO2 than we presently know about - in the hope that continuing with a fossil fuelled civilisation will have a positive affect regarding climate change.

In what way does releasing more CO2 into the atmosphere than would otherwise be the case help climate change? In what why does greater availability of fossil fuel that would otherwise be the case speed civilisations migration away from said fuel?

I believe increased availability of fossil fuels will enable civilisation to propel itself future into overshoot.

I'm not convinced and shall continue to hope for less CO2 tied up accessible reserves.

100 years from now, I think ?we?ll? be in better shape had fossil fuels peaked in 2020 rather than 2050. What?s the counter argument?

[fifthcolumn]

It sounds like your solution is to attempt to carry on doing what we're doing - wish for even more CO2 than we presently know about - in the hope that continuing with a fossil fuelled civilisation will have a positive affect regarding climate change.

I could see how you would guess that's what I'm saying, but it isn't.
I want industrial civilisation to come up with a solution to both peak oil and global warming.
My argument is that we cannot assume that global warming will STOP if we just stop civilisation from running. It's basic risk management.

If you were purely focused on GW then theoretically the best solution would be to cut back consumption across the board except for scientific and engineering endeavours focused on solving GW with a sustainable, renewables based economy.

The first problem with that solution is that most of the scientists and especially the engineers are employed by industry and we cannot guarantee that government will pick a winner so if we arbitrarily chop down the economy we lose most of the ability to solve the problem.
The second problem with that solution is that we do not have a renewables based economy anywhere with the possible exception of iceland and brasil.
Are we going to ask the rest of the world (including ourselves) to shut down their economies while brasil and iceland look for a solution?

100 years from now, I think ?we?ll? be in better shape had fossil fuels peaked in 2020 rather than 2050. What?s the counter argument?

I disagree. I think that technical progress will be so great around 2050 that we won't NEED fossil fuels.

Right now we have NO solution and going back to a pre-industrial civilisation after we have ALREADY put billions of tons of C02 into the atmosphere and whose effects are already programmed in just puts us at the mercy of hope and prayer.

[21st_century_caveman]

Without technology we are doomed. Technology will save us or we die.

Surely thats about the same as saying that without aliens coming down to earth and banging collective heads together and telling us to get on with each other we are all doomed, therefore lets pray the aliens land in time.

The only thing that is going to save us is ourselves.

Yes, technology has a role to play, but it is not the sole answer to all our problems. For it to be effective we need to redesign our whole system of civilisation, economically and politically.
We need a non-hierarchical, participatory and democratic economic and political system where economic and political power is decentralised and in the hands of all people not concentrated in the hands of the few as it is now.

[emordnilap]

For it to be effective we need to redesign our whole system of civilisation, economically and politically

Exactly. To say that technology will save us is like saying nuclear or GMOs or seeding the oceans with iron filings or fusion is going to save us, a claim made so often that people actually believe it - and thus do nothing themselves.

We need a non-hierarchical, participatory and democratic economic and political system where economic and political power is decentralised and in the hands of all people not concentrated in the hands of the few as it is now.

And I would be the last to disagree. But what you're asking here, 21cc, is probably harder than solving our climate chaos/declining energy problem.

[fifthcolumn]

Without technology we are doomed. Technology will save us or we die.

Surely thats about the same as saying that without aliens coming down to earth and banging collective heads together and telling us to get on with each other we are all doomed, therefore lets pray the aliens land in time.

You mean the same way as that by us all returning to a happy and idyllic commune lifestyle where we grow our own lentils and never go outside the village that we will save ourselves?

My suggestion is we keep the conversation to a civilised level because I guarantee I'm as good at slagging as you are.

The only thing that is going to save us is ourselves.

I agree with this part.

Yes, technology has a role to play, but it is not the sole answer to all our problems. For it to be effective we need to redesign our whole system of civilisation, economically and politically.
We need a non-hierarchical, participatory and democratic economic and political system where economic and political power is decentralised and in the hands of all people not concentrated in the hands of the few as it is now.

How do you imagine that you are going to be able to get a consensus if you and I cannot even agree and we are way out in the forefront of understanding of the problem.

A centralised lets-all-hold-hands-and-sing-songs plan isn't going to cut it.