Only saw the film. Which was IMO too conspiracy orientated. The simply fact is there are many incompetent fat-heads running businesses and governments. A conspiracy theory is a convenient way of covering up errors and bad decisions when a fat head get a mulit-million budget...

C02 "sinks" work but at a cost (familar word cost eh) I'd rather they spent the money on nuclear.

Real solution is go zero air pollutants, such as nuclear supply to electrical based cars (although you then have battery issues!) Or to go hydrogen, which produces water. Nothing comes fro nothing and they all have issues.

Neither benefit the shareholders of BP, Shell, Enron, Ford etc etc. So it will be a no go as long as these parasites on society are lining their pockets driving round in their hum vees and buying new swimming pools for their £5m houses.

Oil/Gas are limited resources and should be treated as such. They are treasures never to be replaced, once they are gone, they are gone forever.

(See UK govt attitude to the now running out N sea resources.) In Norway the money is given back to the people or put in a fund for when it runs out, not sucked into Central Govt + Fat Cats pockets.

I really doubt Enron shareholders can afford a humvee nowadays, much less a 5m house.

Don't know whether I should post this, but there are some who would disagree with the above statement.

A book I've seen heavily touted by certain kinds of websites. In no way do I agree with the views of these authors. Why are these books always based on the work of one scientist struggling against the established dogma?

Black Gold Stranglehold: The Myth of Scarcity and The Politics of Oil.

It's all the "liberal/democrat agenda" trying to make us believe that we'll run out of oil so they can further their . . . . . (insert some trite reason here) when in all actuality the amount of crude oil is endless.

There is nothing wrong with one scientist going against the established dogma. Time and time again humans have thought they've had it all figured out and then a groundbreaking discovery comes along which changes the way all of human kind thinks. It, however, is very important to check who is being funded by what.

I'm not saying that this guy with the oil is right but I can think of a few scientists who definitely went against the accepted "truths" and were ridiculed for their scientific statements. That being said though, when their science was objectively evaluated by their peers their results could not be refuted, even by people who desperately wanted to. I'm not sure if that will happen with "Black Gold Stranglehold: The Myth of Scarcity and The Politics of Oil"

Regardless, even if there is an unending supply of oil there are many cleaner alternatives that are being and should continue to be investigated.

Yeah,I know, obviously some ideas are hard to give up. I'm just picking up on too much of these "Lone crusader" types. Probably a web effect though...

Haha wondered if someone would pick up on that one....

Oil isn't scarce, just limited and finite in quantity (by extraction cost and by reserves.) Perhaps a 200yr supply maybe that's financially viable. Still something to be looked after and managed rather than wasted. Lets think about world population and growth vs oil resource. China specifically.

Then there's the real problem, which is pollution. Why use this when there's other clean alternatives available? Yes they are more expensive currently but with the right R+D the cost would drop.

Lets see if they decide to destroy Alaska to find more oil, opps they already have decided to go ahead, thanks G W Bush!

Saying that the Canadians are having a good go in Alberta with tar sand, so can't say something without giving them a mention. (BTW my aunt lives in Calgary so I've been past and seen the mess this oil extraction method creates.)

I remember once being told when I was in college how the planet is currently (technically at least) coming off the back of an ice age (because of the polar ice caps) and how to some degree, what may be attributed to global warming / climate change, is actually just a natural climate change related to the move out of the ice age.

Although, it seems to me that the changes since, say 1900, compared to the changes since 1800, are drastic and clearly can be linked to industrialisation. But even so, the state we "found" the planet in is not it's permanent state. Yes, we're accelerating the rate of change, but I don't necessarily agree with this "we need to give it to our descendents in the same state that we found it"

After all, with all the technological advances, who's to say we won't find some amazing ozone-regenerating technology and be able to repair the damage currently being done? In which case, I say burn more fossil fuels and find the cure quicker

*nb, all or some of the above may be scientifically inaccurate, I ain't no expert

Great, let's gamble on it... what are the odds?

But they do say necessity is the mother of invention.

True, but as a child when I got caught and was in bother and needed to lie, I actually proved that mothers were the necessity of invention.

I have been following this debate with interest. I could not in any way claim to be Scientifically qualified in any shape or form, but I do not think that this disqualifies me from having an opinion on this matter. I am just an ordinary man in the street, I do not have a political degree but does that mean I can not vote.
One of the things that stands out in my mind when reading the above posts is there is such a debate on figures of the different elements involved in GW, if the evidence would be conclusive it would be end of debate.
Which makes me look at the matter from a political angle. When doing this things start to look a lot more cloudy and more worrying.

It appears that in a U-turn bearing the trademark of US policy makers Mr. Bush Junior is now a supporter of the fight on global warming.

More here

I particularly like this Martin Lukes-ian soundbit:

G W Bush can't take anything seriously on GW, if it exists or not.

Oil has paid his wages for years.

Must be his Haliburton wage slip after he leaves the White House waying on his mind.

Quite right. Just being a scientist doesn't make you an expert in everything scientific. You can only be an expert in the fields in which you work. The only "advantage" a practising or "lapsed" scientist might have over a layperson is a higher than average ability to objectively look at data and facts. Therefore in a non-political way. But that skill is not the sole province of the scientist. Merely that, amongst scientists, there is a greater proportion of people who have been trained to habitually think logically and hopefully, sceptically, about information.

Conclusive of what? Anyway, I don't agree. There are people who think the Earth is flat, that the Lunar landings were a hoax, etc. It's a very human trait to ignore evidence and "discount the future".

From my perspective, that's a little worrying. My response would be to try to get my hands on more facts. Why not start here?

[quote=BeastOfBodmin;68109]Quite right. Just being a scientist doesn't make you an expert in everything scientific. You can only be an expert in the fields in which you work. The only "advantage" a practising or "lapsed" scientist might have over a layperson is a higher than average ability to objectively look at data and facts. Therefore in a non-political way. But that skill is not the sole province of the scientist. Merely that, amongst scientists, there is a greater proportion of people who have been trained to habitually think logically and hopefully, sceptically, about information.

As a layman I do certainly look at this issue from a more subjective veiwpoint as well as the facts and figures from Scientists I include what is happening Politically.So that I try to take in the whole picture not just from one standpoint.

Conclusive of what? Anyway, I don't agree. There are people who think the Earth is flat, that the Lunar landings were a hoax, etc. It's a very human trait to ignore evidence and "discount the future".

From life experience, when the people of power or influence wish to prove/disprove a particular point, they use figures, and figures can be found to prove/disprove most items of debate. Which is why I look at this issue from more than one angle.

From my perspective, that's a little worrying. My response would be to try to get my hands on more facts. Why not start here?[/quote

Intresting link, thank you,but response does feel as though I am being talked down to a little

Fusion story on BBC, this is what I was on about. Makes any other possible source of energy pretty much a waste of time.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6720449.stm

Nice.

Once you have started nuclear fusion, how do you stop it and prevent the earth becoming a sun?

Just stop the flow of hydrogen isotopes into the reactor. Easy!
The earth wouldn't become a sun, it would just have a large burnt patch if it went really belly-up.
Here's a comic to cheer you up, though.

Like any other reaction you need to keep feeding it fuel, so eventually it would stop.

Fusion on earth uses tiny amounts of fuel unlike the sun.

The sun just has massive amounts of fuel, but eventually it will run out and swell in size to a red giant as it and the reaction cools down, then ultimately a supernova. (Exploding Star)

On earth it uses magnetic fields so it "floats" within a microscopic pressured bubble , hence drop in pressure = not right conditions for reaction.

Not a fusion expert, but it's awesome stuff. 1km sq of seawater = earths energy for 1 year.