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Comment Re:Complete article (Score 2) 442

From a strictly theoretical perspective the answer would be yes. However, for an experimental and physical indication of reality of how carbon dioxide acts to produce its effects is now so thoroughly understood that it would be foolish to deny the easily computable results of any model that seriously attempts to predict system behaviors and defy the highly probable and extremely harmful outcomes of failing to understand the basics of atmospheric physics or its immediate biological consequences.

Comment Re:Complete article (Score 2) 442

Eradicating plagues is hardly artificial or unnatural. One only has to look to the evolution of the ascomycetous genus Pencillum and use of this fact by Homo sapiens to see that. At least you are free to argue in the face of mathematical absurdity of assuming a false premise and being able to conclude both truth and falsity, without knowledge of either. Clearly, you need another premise.

Comment An even bigger question (Score 1, Interesting) 442

is whether we can figure out a way to avoid it as we go about destroying it through lack of knowledge about biology and planetary science on the part of the average citizen.

Yet at a time, we need even more scientists, republicans are slashing funds for education at all levels from pre-K on the Mississippi Delta to graduate study at the world's most prestigious universities. However, people shouldn't look to the media to educate themselves. After all, whats the point, if you've just enrolled in the School of Hard Knocks.

Comment march towards sanity, while there is still time (Score 0) 442

Jogging to the left at times, particularly when you may be stepping of a cliff on your right, can be great for survival, assuming of course that survival is even any longer an option for any of us for long. A couple of hundred years as a species, if we are lucky?

From the perspective of a professional biologist, let us only hope we can soon find our wits rather than our glaringly obvious limits.

There has been so much to the degradation of the natural world by humanity, that there can be little doubt in anyone's mind that the relative fragile and brittle, biotic skin of life that we depend on for own own sustenance and that of our families has been greatly diminished over the age of human presence.

We like to think of passing on our genes to the next generation, perpetuating our own mortality as it were. Although this will be the closest we can ever get to immortality, the unfortunate answer to the question we must now ponder, thanks to our collective thoughtless, is whether those of our children be even able to survive in the future. Of course, we will be gone before we find out. That seems like such a hollow epitaph for humanity.

Comment Re:Complete article (Score 1) 442

So are you saying that carbon dioxide does not absorb energy in the infrared of the spectrum in the form of vibrate causing a general warming of the atmosphere by accelerating the speed of molecular collisions as a result of Newton's Second Law of Thermodynamics?

Because if you are, either you will find it impossible to explain yourself or will soon be awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for predicting something that all physicists are in complete agreement on.

Comment Re:Easy Solution (Score 1) 222

So the only thing this would accomplish is forcing Comcast making it clear that thousands of residents have no expectation of internet service.

You can't expect people to fund other people's internet access for free and the constitution prohibits bills of attainder of the type you are attempting to write anyway, so your approach is moot before it even gets of the ground.

Much better is to find ways to actually create competition in markets like Kitsap County that doesn't actually have any.

Comment Re:Easy Solution (Score 1) 222

The answer is not a "corporate death penalty", but rather real, honest to goodness competition in a free market, which in places like Kitsap County, we don't really have because we have a monopoly provider.

What we need is a community based, lowcost collective reseller of already existing KPUD internet services to act as a competitor of last resort, rather than the Comcast monopoly that exists by default (and of course, by design).

Comment Re:Easy Solution (Score 1) 222

Makes no sense. Comcast is the only Internet cable provider in the area for many locations. You would just be disconnecting thousands of users from the internet, just to be hard nosed, not that I have any particular eagerness to pay Comcast their exorbitant prices.

Instead, I suggest Kitsap County residents form their own corporation to act as a reseller of KPUD internet. That way local communities will have more control over their installation and prices. It could operate as a "for profit collective". It can use the same utility easements that Comcast now uses to service its customers and individual households can pay 1) for the line on their side of the plug at the curb and 2) the amount of internet service they use at a price set by the collective, which they would have a voice in establishing.

Comment Re:Easy Solution? Maybe a far better solution (Score 1) 222

Fining the Cable Companies won't get very far as they simply have enough cash to buy all the politicians they need to stay ahead of the curve, particularly since they only need about 1/3 of the politicians to stymie any positive solution.

However, there is an interesting twist to this and being a resident of Kitsap county it has made me curious.

Under state law, the KPUD (Kitsap Public Utility District) can not sell its internet connections directly to customers, but must sell to resellers. The question then becomes, how can citizens of Kitsap County organize into an effective collective for the purposes of "resale" directly to other citizens within the community?

What are the requirements for becoming a "reseller" as far as KPUD. One could envision a corporation that is created by those who want to buy a share and then access can be sold directly by the corporation to Kitsap County residents no longer interested in paying high fees to Comcast for access. I figure I am an average Comcast user. I pay about $250 per month for their service, which in my case uses their TV and phone platforms. For internet I pay about $50, but if I drop the TV and phone I get to pay about $85-100 for exactly the same internet service. If I could pay about $35 for 1G/sec internet (I know get 50MB/sec), it would be a good deal as far as I am concerned and I suspect that with the money made the new citizens corporation could maintain the service and expand to cover new users, as well as finally give Comcast some competition, which they currently lack.

The advantage of this approach is that it could be done county wide, so Kitsap County users wouldn't have to fight Comcast in every county in the state, just to see competition in Kitsap county.

Are there any other Kitsap county residents thinking the same thing I am thinking? If so, please respond. Maybe something worthwhile can come of this story.

Comment Re:10 myths about fossil fuel divestment (Score 1) 190

"But the amounts being divested are too small to flood the market and cut share prices, so they won’t be going cheap."

Clearly, you don't understand how stock markets work. The value of a stock is merely that of its last trade. Convince someone you have a stock that is going higher and you have a buyer. Convince them it is going lower and you have more sellers and fewer buyers. The number of shares traded don't matter, merely the last trade made.

As divestment picks up steam, not to mention all the inconvenient truths about the "other" costs of burning fossil fuels and soon you have more people expecting that the prices will fall. This is of importance in that as the price falls it exacerbates the problem of too much capacity without sufficient buyers or consumers further driving expectations. Stock value is not something that is intrinsic to a stock, it is something that is entirely created by perceptions. The perception has long been that fossil fuels are "black gold". More and more people are coming to perceive that they can also likely represent a "black future".

Comment Re:So many things wrong with this... (Score 1) 190

" no net difference"

This is a fallacy. There is no net difference in number of shares or the total population, but the value changes dramatically. Given the way our markets are structured, that value is based entirely on the last trade made. Stock investing is like the game of musical chairs in that its great if you have ownership of a chair and chairs are highly prized. However, if billions of people doesn't own a chair, then they tends to value chairs and the game differently, usually by going off and playing an entirely new game.

Comment Re:persuading investors to sell off their fossil f (Score 1) 190

"net assets remain the same,"

The assets remain the same, but their value does not. In a way, as the value changes, so does how people regard the assets.

It all really comes down to a question of values. Those who think something is valuable will want more, particularly if they perceive that its value will rise in the future. The reverse is also true and those who think leaving the fossil fuels in the ground so humans have a planet that still supports human life will also value fossil fuels, but in an entirely different way.

That is one of the reasons a divestment strategy in fossil fuels is a good idea. It reduces the profits for those who think they earn an easy profit by producing and burning it and that money can instead, as you suggest, be invested in developing human friendlier alternatives.

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