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dirtguy's comments:
on An Hour With Al Gore
I cringe every time I hear Al Gore refer to the "consensus of the worlds' top scientists". As others have noted, 'consensus' is more about politics than science. Science is about our best attempt at not fooling our selves in all the usual human ways.
The problem we have with our current concerns about CO2 emissions and possible catastrophes, is very much like our concerns with Saddams nuclear capabilities. We can't know enough to prove anything for certain. And, we don't want to err on the wrong side of a potentially catastrophic unknown.
So, while a 'consensus of scientists', about something that cannot be proved, should be an oxymoron, it may be the best we humans can do when confronted with a potentially dangerous unknown.
I think Al Gores' strongest arguement - that I whole heartedly agree with - is that we need to be doing these things for other reasons anyway.
posted 3 years, 6 months ago
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on An Hour With Al Gore
You've stumped me. What are you thinking of with regards to excessive Carbon from plant residue adversely effecting growing conditions? Are you making the arguement that Milk will kill you if you drink a gallon in five minutes? Or are you refering to the initial lag in Nitrogen availability if a high C:N ratio organic like sawdust is added to a soil?
posted 3 years, 6 months ago
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on Northwest Passages: Naseem Rakha
I am not suggesting that the process of seeing myself in an offender always leads to forgiveness. The process is more like an accurate diagnosis, that both frees the victim of the burden of hate, and sometimes locks up the perpetrator and throws away the key.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Northwest Passages: Naseem Rakha
My experience with forgiveness is that it is not really possible without the work of seeing myself in the other. Sometime this is a many decades long process. The motivation for this seemingly impossible task is indeed the reallity of having our life poisoned by the alternative.
One of the illusions that keeps many of us from going down that road is that; if we understand the "offender" we somehow minimize, or condone what they have done. This has not been my experience. On the contrary, knowing the mind of the offender is not only the best defense from further offense, but also puts you in a possition to effect any possible rehabilitation.
posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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on Rx: Profiting from Sickness
We have got to find a way to seperate our discussion into different components, with different solutions.
1. Preventitive and Primary care - society has a strong interest in funding it. This is a very small part of the 'Medical costs' pie.
2. Work related accidents/illnesses - society also has an interest and a responsibility.
3. No fault accident/illness - Societie's interest here is more contingent on future potential productivity of the patient. [ This is potentially the most sticky area to sort out. Institutional charity becomes an obvious candidate to play a role.]
4. Lifestyle related accident/illness - The charity of family/friends, or private insurance makes the most sense in these cases. [ Again, a hard area to draw boundaries around. ]
5. End of life/heroic measures and cosmetic surgery - Leave these exclusively to the private insurance companies. They know how to assess risk and will adjust rates accordingly. Society has little interest in this very large part of the 'Medical costs' pie.
posted 3 years, 9 months ago
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on The State of Black Oregon
The perenial problem is human. Race is a distraction.
People of good will and personal stregth will always have to defend the vulnerable from the multitudes of shortsighted, self-interested humans looking for an advantage over someone else. Institutionally we do this with laws and enforcement. Culturally we do this by elevating talented minorities. Personally we do this through force of personality and courage in our communities.
The problem of socially destructive oportunism never goes away. The mission of people of good will is to minimize those opportunities.
We get confused by racism in this country because being black, and historically dis-enpowered, as well as a minority, makes you generally an easier target for the most opportunistic in the non-black majority. This all in a species that is largely oportunistic in a personal and tribally superficial way.
There will always be plenty of work to do.
Oregon will have special challenges in this regard because of the specific demographics.
Human nature in the un-enlightened is not a pretty thing. Appearance, power, (or lack of), affiliation, are all clues used by the ruthlessly opportunistic, to find advantage at someone elses expense.
I have good (Kenyan) friends who found themselves in mortal danger because of human opportunism taking advantage of a power differential based on tribal affiliation and location in their own country.
People of good will, of every stripe will alway have their hands full in riding herd on the excessively opportunistic.
posted 3 years, 10 months ago
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on Obama Rolls Back Bush Logging Plan
We know how to log and manage forest lands several times better than we can afford to do it.
If we had a global forest practices act, and adequate referees, then the cost of a 2X4 would reflected the true cost of producing it sustainabley and responsibley. We don't have either of those things, and are not likely to get them anytime soon.
Sadly, the choice we are left with is for society to subidize forest management, or turn loose those who have a conflict of interest (no matter what they tell you) with certain aspects of a healthy forest. We have been down that road. Finally enough people, including many loggers, said stop.
posted 3 years, 10 months ago
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on The Switch: Biomass
Plants do indeed use the approximately 17 essential elements in different proportions in different parts of the plants. The Cobalt in an alph alpha plant mostly ends up in the blossom. But unless you can point me to some recent research; the specifics of what many of the micro nutrients do in different parts of diffent plants is still a long way from being well understood.
Ideally, we would be able to understand the function of, as well as track all of the essential nutrients when we move them around.
The last time I checked, the state of the art is still that: when we start with distilled water in a hydroponic growing medium, and include purified sources of the essential elements; any one of them can limit the use of the others if its' level falls too low. And if it is absent, the plant dies.
In other areas of agriculture we have had the luxury of being able to put the full weight of our technologies and science into wringing out every last bit of productivity in our cultivatable soils. This has often been a process of finding the limiting nutrient by cropping. Then, in a flurry of generalized testing and over kill, we have added enough fertillizer containing some of the limiting element, that we were back in production. This is an often wastful and imprecise process. It is also more difficult on lands that are not easily accessable/ammenable to soil manipulation. This does not even address the complexity of the cycling of nutrients in natural soils that depend on relationships between living things in the soil. This is something we have been abel to ignore/destroy in soils where we could cultivate and add what ever was needed on a regular basis.
Forest soils are still mostly self sustaining. So were the prairies, before we started cropping them.
posted 3 years, 11 months ago
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on The Switch: Biomass
Biochar sidesteps the issues you raise with fused ash in boilers. What would be ash, (elements the plant has harvested from the soil), remains in the charcoal.
Boilers operate at a yellow white heat i.e., 2300 - 2500 degrees F. [This is the same temperature we fire Stoneware and Porcelain glazes.] In contrast, Charcoaling is done more in the much lower range of 500- 700 degrees F. Little is lost beyond what is easily vaporized, i.e., assorted hydrocarbons with some Nitrogen and Sulfur.
posted 3 years, 11 months ago
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on The Switch: Biomass
Erin,
Charcoal not only has nutrients, it has all the roughly 15 essential nutrients that higher plants need, (minus the ones that are provided by water and air).
All higher plants need these essential nutrients, albeit in different ratios.
Still, biochar is a great idea that would be even better for agriculture if we found a way to make it out of more diverse plant matter that paid attention to the ratio of the essential mineral nutrients they contained relative to the crops we expected to harvest from them.
And then there is the benefit to soil texture of this broad spectrum, slowly time released package of potential life, especially in heavy soils.
Not only are the nutrient in the charcoal, they are dispersed and protected from easy, (and sometime counterproductive), interaction by the Carbon 'matrix'.
Put marure in a clay soil and it improves the soil texture for a season. Put sawdust in a clay soil and it disappears in 2-3 years. Biochar, if it starts as coarse sawdust size pieces, will likely be around for decades, wasting little of it's treasures to reactions outside the life processes in the soil.
posted 3 years, 11 months ago
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on TOL Remote in Newport: Wave Energy
The best places for wave or wind or solar are often so far from where the energy is consumed that transmission is a limiting factor.
But........, by making and compressing Hydrogen with the electricity generated, while inefficient when measured by an, energy in - energy out metric; this inefficiency is not really an issue if the devises themselves are engineered to be extremely long lived.
posted 3 years, 11 months ago
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on Rural Recession
Here in E. Oregon their is a higher percentage of people who put their energy into producing something as a way to make themselves useful to others, and by extension make a living.
In urban areas there seems to be a larger percentage of people who have had to resort to extracting their living from other people.
It is not surprising to me that the more urban areas have more people that are better at chasing 'free' cash.
posted 4 years ago
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on The Efficiency Factor
Over the last several generations, energy has been so cheap that most people have grown accustomed to heating their whole house. This is nuts!
We cut our energy consumption for heating by more than a third, by simply "isolating" one common room with curtains, and keeping it nice and toasty. The rest of the house is not heated directly. Everyone can always be plenty warm and it tends to make for more 'family time'.
posted 4 years ago
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on The Efficiency Factor
Please define "brown and white" fat. Are you talking food now?
posted 4 years ago
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on The Efficiency Factor
Your point is so important. Without a little wise structuring of the rules of competition, the carrots and sticks can end up it the wrong places.
posted 4 years ago
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on The Efficiency Factor
I have had terrible luck with the compact fluorescent bulbs. I have had many many burn out in less than 3 months. I keep buying them in the hopes that they get the bugs worked out of them. Am I just unlucky? What about the mercury? Is it released if the bulb breakes? How are they being recycled? I have a pretty big pile. I am starting to hate those things.
Modifications in space heating, on the other hand, has a big potential for saving a lot of fossil fuel use. Americans heating their whole houses, is a tradition that was born of the luxury of many generations of cheap energy. A simple screen/ curtain was all it took to transform our 1500 sq. ft. home that was never warm enough, to a home where we had one common room that was always plenty warm and cozy with very little energy use.
It might help bring familys a little closer in other ways too.
posted 4 years ago
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on What's the Most Popular Vote?
Patisans of either party tend to not have perspective, but, very importantly, they provide perspective to the nation on difficult issues where things are not black and white. The parties both specialize in an adversarial way. [Like lawyers in a courtroom.]
The nation has an interest in both parties being in some semblence of balance.
The nation also has an interest in the polarities being as evenly spread out as possible, in as many communities as possible. This make it more likely that solutions and compromises will be found on the most difficult issues.
The electoral college does not gauruntee any of this, but it is the one thing we have that does run counter to the natural tendancies to clump into waring camps. We need more things like that, not less. I am open to any suggestions you might have.
posted 4 years ago
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on What's the Most Popular Vote?
One of the primary concerns of the founders was keeping the Federation united. They knew enough 'tribal' human nature to know that people tend to migrate to communities of like minded people. Over time this will both work against national unity, and create more and more pockets of 'tyrany of majorities' in different geographic areas.
The electoral college is absolutely essential to keep things stirred up. I does this by not giving an advantage to a party in having a majority of more than one in any community.
posted 4 years ago
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on Healthy Choices
I feel like the guests and the discussion here really only scratched the surface. Many of the comments here were great beginnings - as facets on a multifaceted issue. Maybe this is a discussion that could be done a number of times with different guests?
posted 4 years, 1 month ago
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on Not At School
Yes!!! That would be fun. And I suspect that both men would do better than the other might think.
posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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