Energy and carbon.

[Neil]

Too many people, maybe life is not sustainable with the huge number of consumers that is growing rapidly, we have met the enemy......

**********

All farmland is industrially destroyed former forest, wetland and prairie. In fact, agriculture is by far the most environmentally destructive force on the planet, and has been for almost all human history. It also has the unfortunate destructive feedback loop of creating food surpluses, which leads to more children being produced who need yet more farmland as they expand out to destroy more forest, wetland and prairie, producing yet more humans, etc…. All of us who eat vegetables and grains (and live in a house, which is all of us), are complicit in environmental destruction and degradation.

[ccockrell]

The last few posts seem a little down. It's hard to consolidate emotionally all the information given in the theads, not to mention the information streaming at us from every other dimension. However, a little hope should be injected. It takes only 1/4 acre per person to grow the veg needed per person. ( Barbara Kingsolver: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: The Year of Food Life) A Patio, a small garden, a community garden, a bike ride to the local store; all of these things qualify as a step in the right direction. Some will belittle these steps as too little and too late. I think not. Each of us who step up to take the bike to the corner store, grow our own string beans and go to the local Farmer's Market on our bike, make a statement. I'm an optimist and, I hope, a survivor. Let's all of us make these little steps.

[backwoodsman]

Ignoring the problem,or its source doesn't solve it.Think about it,the next time you pass another 50 houses being built,think about where the lumber came from(maybe Cedarlands),the blacktop,rooftops absorbing heat,why is this all happening?

[Little Rickie]

I guess you could say he's against bio-fuels. Interesting article.

From: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...xt=va&aid=6188 ,

I think he is saying he is against big agri biz controling bio-fuels and fuel production taking away from food production and raising food prices. He really doesn't offer any alternative to our reliance on oil.

Bio-fuel is part of developing energy alternatives so we are less dependent on oil not replace oil. No solution or alternative is perfect. It will always be a work in progress.

The current high price of oil is motivating the research into alternatives, just like it did in the 70s but we dropped the ball. Will we lean from that or go compliant...again.

What have we learned if anything?
.

[1894]

I think he is saying he is against big agri biz controling bio-fuels and fuel production taking away from food production and raising food prices. He really doesn't offer any alternative to our reliance on oil.

Bio-fuel is part of developing energy alternatives so we are less dependent on oil not replace oil. No solution or alternative is perfect. It will always be a work in progress.

The current high price of oil is motivating the research into alternatives, just like it did in the 70s but we dropped the ball. Will we lean from that or go compliant...again.

What have we learned if anything?
.

Unfortunately , probably not enough
To me anyways , it seems like common sense to start by drilling here , now , so we will pay less for gas and oil right now. Use the huge coal resources we have in the most enviromental friendly ways possible , and start building new , modern nuke plants ( the cleanest mass power that is proven at this time) These things will cut our fuel / electric costs by at least half , mayby even two thirds for the next 1/2 century or so. Those savings and North American company proffits can be used to help develop our long term cleaner and renewable energy technology and get those things online with the required infastructure .
Instead , our "Gov't " is letting China (and other countries ) drill 50 miles off the coast of Fla , horizontaly into "Our oil" while not letting American companies do the same
At the same time the Gov't is talking about taxing our companies to death wich will further increase our dependance on foregn countries
Where has that mentality that made up "The Greatest Generation" gone ? They said let's do what we can with what we have right now ,and plan and work for making the future better. The princible seems lost in this Not In My Backyard , I want it right now , We want change but it better not affect anything I want to protect , generation

[1894]

The last few posts seem a little down. It's hard to consolidate emotionally all the information given in the theads, not to mention the information streaming at us from every other dimension. However, a little hope should be injected. It takes only 1/4 acre per person to grow the veg needed per person. ( Barbara Kingsolver: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: The Year of Food Life) A Patio, a small garden, a community garden, a bike ride to the local store; all of these things qualify as a step in the right direction. Some will belittle these steps as too little and too late. I think not. Each of us who step up to take the bike to the corner store, grow our own string beans and go to the local Farmer's Market on our bike, make a statement. I'm an optimist and, I hope, a survivor. Let's all of us make these little steps.

You make a great point There are a lot of things that we the people can do , and I'd be willing to bet that many ( even some of us that make the "down type" posts ) are doing many of the things you mentioned
I hope there is enough latitude here in the "general discusion" section for someone to start a thread about what they are proactivly doing and get some good responses and discusion about what we can and are doing at an individual level

[colden46]

To me anyways , it seems like common sense to start by drilling here , now , so we will pay less for gas and oil right now.

Areas can't just be opened for drilling and have production begin immediately. Surveys and exploration needs to be done to determine where exactly to drill, equipment needs to be brought in, pipelines need to be built, etc. If today you said "ok, drill offshore or in ANWR", it would be years before that oil hit the market. If it did have an effect on prices right now, it would be purely from investors hearing the news and reacting, not due to the actual petroleum supply increasing. I agree that we should investigate increasing domestic production responsibly, but it isn't going to cure our short-term problems.

At the same time the Gov't is talking about taxing our companies to death wich will further increase our dependance on foregn countries

Taxing our companies to death? I hope you're not talking about oil companies, which have quarterly profits in the billions of dollars (Exxon Mobil has averaged around $10 billion per quarter for a while now). I'm not saying a windfall tax is a good thing, but to say that they would teeter on the edge of bankruptcy if they had to pay some more taxes on their $40 billion per year is a bit of an exaggeration.

[DRIFTER]

......China Starts Oil Drilling Off Florida Coast
Posted by Rick Honcho June 2, 2008 { I believe they started around 2006?]
While Washington dithers over exploiting oil and gas reserves off the coast of Florida, China has seized the opportunity to gobble up these deposits, which run throughout Latin America, the Caribbean and along the U.S. Gulf coast. The Chinese have forged a deal with Cuban leader Fidel Castro to explore and tap into massive oil reserves almost within sight of Key West, Florida. At the same time, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who controls the largest oil reserves in the Western Hemisphere, is making deals to sell his country’s oil to China, oil that is currently coming to the United States. Meanwhile, a new left-wing populist regime in Bolivia has nationalized the natural gas industry, threatening to cut off supplies to the United States.

SLANT DRILLING

There are new reports out circulating that Chinese firms are planning to slant drill off the Cuban c oast near the Florida Straits, tapping into U.S. oil reserves that are estimated at 4.6 billion to 9.3 billion barrels. This compares with 4 billion to 10 billion barrels believed to be beneath the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, where drilling is held up in Congress due to the objections of environmental groups which warn of endangering caribou. Permission to drill in the refuge, which experts are certain will not present any environmental hazard, has failed by just two votes in the Senate. As Chinese business increases its reach around the world, it is seeking oil, which it lacks domestically. After elections in Mexico in early July, when a new regime hostile to Washington is expected to take power, the United States might be without supplies of Mexican crude oil. The United States gets about 40 percent of its imported oil from Mexico and Venezuela.

China is eager to tap into oil reserves in the Florida Straits and then make a deal with Castro to control it. The Chinese have already reopened an abandoned Russian oil refinery in Cuba. Much of the gas refined there is believed to be destined for Freeport in the Bahamas, where the Chinese, through front company Hutchison-Whampoa, has developed a massive port facility and airfield. With the refinery reopened and expanded it will also meet the needs of Castro.

We should definitely wait a little longer and think about it some more!

......http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2008/may/...l-arctic-and-/

[1894]

I'll play , even if just to play the devils advocate for purposes of discusion

Areas can't just be opened for drilling and have production begin immediately. Surveys and exploration needs to be done to determine where exactly to drill, equipment needs to be brought in, pipelines need to be built, etc. If today you said "ok, drill offshore or in ANWR", it would be years before that oil hit the market. If it did have an effect on prices right now, it would be purely from investors hearing the news and reacting, not due to the actual petroleum supply increasing. I agree that we should investigate increasing domestic production responsibly, but it isn't going to cure our short-term problems.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Not sure how to seperate , but I'll cut in here on your post
I'm using the term "short term to impy from today through the next 50 years.
Yes I agree that there is a lag time to get the ducks in a row , the equipment and safeguards , and the logistics all in place. And yes ANWAR could take close to 10 years. My point is that for the last 20 - 30 years our american companies have been doing the surveys and exploration , found where the oil is and have been severly handicaped from moving past that point to actual production. Our enviromental lobby has us way behind the ball because of this.
And yes , the investers and speculaters would stand up and take notice if the largest oil purchaser in the world decided to take care of thier own instead of just buying at whatever rate some other country thinks they can charge us.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Taxing our companies to death? I hope you're not talking about oil companies, which have quarterly profits in the billions of dollars (Exxon Mobil has averaged around $10 billion per quarter for a while now). I'm not saying a windfall tax is a good thing, but to say that they would teeter on the edge of bankruptcy if they had to pay some more taxes on their $40 billion per year is a bit of an exaggeration.

----------------------------------------------------------------------


Yes , I'm talking about those oil companies. They are large and make a profit based upon the volume of product they sell. Which only works out to 7 -8 % profit. They Sell 3,000,000 gallons a day or so , Yes it looks huge , but should we add extra taxes to all companies that make a profit ? Take a look at your 401K Do you want to invest in companies that make under 10% profit or do you look for the ones that are in the 20 - 30 % profit range ? Like these : http://www.stockinvestingx.com/highe...it-margins.php
Yes I think they are teetering , a company is owned by shareholders , when thier investment is losing money they sell , the company goes bankrupt , and America looses out.
And by the way , regarding taxes paid yearly , the greedy oil companies pay more in income taxes than the first 3/4 of all individual and married US tax payers combined.

Just trying to play devils advocate here for discusion purposes only
And looking for that What I do at an individual level thread.

[Little Rickie]

I'll play , even if just to play the devils advocate for purposes of discusion



----------------------------------------------------------------------


Yes , I'm talking about those oil companies. They are large and make a profit based upon the volume of product they sell. Which only works out to 7 -8 % profit. They Sell 3,000,000 gallons a day or so , Yes it looks huge , but should we add extra taxes to all companies that make a profit ? Take a look at your 401K Do you want to invest in companies that make under 10% profit or do you look for the ones that are in the 20 - 30 % profit range ? Like these : http://www.stockinvestingx.com/highe...it-margins.php
Yes I think they are teetering , a company is owned by shareholders , when thier investment is losing money they sell , the company goes bankrupt , and America looses out.
And by the way , regarding taxes paid yearly , the greedy oil companies pay more in income taxes than the first 3/4 of all individual and married US tax payers combined.

Just trying to play devils advocate here for discusion purposes only
And looking for that What I do at an individual level thread.

Are you a financial advisor in real life?

[Little Rickie]

[QUOTE=DRIFTER;98920]......China Starts Oil Drilling Off Florida CoastQUOTE]

It seems odd to me that China, which is such a huge land mass, doesn't have it's own oil?

[colden46]

Well if you're going to call 50 years out "short term", then I really can't argue. However, I would guess that if you told the people that are clamoring for lower gas prices that "prices will go down in the short term", they're not thinking 50 years from now. They're not even thinking next year. They're thinking tomorrow, and maybe next week. Heck, a lot of us here will be dead in 50 years.

About the oil company taxes, allow me to play devil's advocate to respond to "should we add extra taxes to all companies that make a profit". The answer is no, but most companies are not oil companies. Most consumer goods are not traded on the commodities market, where their prices are subject to speculation and trading by people who never intend to actually take delivery of the product. Most consumer goods have elastic demand, so when the price triples or quadruples, people don't buy it anymore. Along the same vein, most companies don't make a product that is so integral to our everyday lives, that we need to buy significant quantities of it (yes, need -- our suburban infrastructure isn't going to change anytime soon). Most companies don't get such a benefit from the declining value of the dollar. And most companies that make a profit are not setting records for their profits quarter after quarter. There are certainly good counter-points to all these, but like I said, I'm just playing devil's advocate too. As I said in my other post, "I'm not saying a windfall tax is a good thing"

I've still gotta disagree with you about teetering, though. Sure, their profit margin is around 10%, well below other industries. It's also above some others -- including the supermarket industry, which I'm going to go out on a limb here and say is not going to close up shop anytime soon. Why? Because we need food. Just like we need oil. The only way oil companies might go bankrupt is if researchers come up with some miracle alternative energy source, making their business model obsolete.

[1894]

No Rickey , and I didn't even stay at a holiday inn express last night But simple math is pretty easy . where would you want to invest your hard earned dollars now to pay for colledge for your kids or retirement and old age living for you and your wife ?
Big oil that has less than a 10% profit anually and pays divedends bases on that proffit , or one of these companies with over 1,000% proffit ?

Heres a short list :

IMNR.OB IMMUNE RESPONSE CORP 435768.0%
BNVI.OB BIONOVO INC 49364.2%
AWC ALUMINA LTD ADS 23616.7%
FEN ENERGY INCOME & GROWTH FUND 9754.0%
SKYT.OB SKYTERRA COMMUNICATN 8954.5%
CYBL.OB CYBERLUX CORP 5699.9%
TRF TEMPLETON RUSS&EEUR 4854.5%
AZGS.OB AZTEC OIL & GAS INC 4547.5%
TRBD.OB TURBODYNE TECHS INC 4323.6%
CEE CENTRAL EUROPE & RUS 4160.9%
AMO ALLIANCE ALL MKT FND 4158.4%
KEF KOREA EQUITY FUND 3552.9%
JEQ JAPAN EQUITY FD 3534.2%
ASA A S A LTD 3264.2%
JOF JAPAN SMLR CAP FUND 3141.2%
RNE MS EASTERN EURO FD 2841.9%
BXL BEXIL CP 2529.7%
HQH H Q HEALTHCARE SBI 2469.7%
TKF TURKISH INVEST FUND 2419.4%
ABCP.OB AMBASE CORP 2339.1%
ACTC.OB ADVANCED CELL TECH 2258.2%
IFN INDIA FUND (THE) 2167.7%
MXF MEXICO FUND INC 2163.2%
FVL FIRST TR VALUE LINE 2163.2%
HQL HQ LIFE SCIENCES IND 2085.8%
MXE MEXICO EQUITY INC 1997.1%
IIF MS INDIA INV FD 1911.7%
SWZ SWISS HELVETIA FUND 1821.4%
CSWC CAPITAL SOUTHWEST 1769.3%
ETF EMRG MKT TELCOM FUND 1741.6%
GRR ASIA TIGERS FUND INC 1737.8%
KF KOREA FUND THE 1711.5%
ASG LIBERTY ALLSTAR GRW 1618.7%
GF GERMANY FUND NEW THE 1605.5%
CHN CHINA FUND INC 1603.5%
LDF LATIN AMER DISCOV FD 1504.6%
MSF MS DW EMERGING MKT 1430.0%
FVI FIRST TRUST/VALUE LI 1412.1%
APF MS ASIA-PAC FUND 1295.1%
FUND ROYCE FOCUS TRUST 1285.4%
IRL THE NEW IRELAND FD 1258.5%
GCS DSW GLOBAL COMMO 1224.8%
NAI NIC-APLGT STRAT FD 1204.8%
RMT ROYCE MICRO-CAP TR 1200.0%
LAQ LATIN AMER EQUITY FD 1153.9%
RVT ROYCE VALUE TR INC 1128.1%
IGA ING GL & PRM OP FD 1109.4%
EACO.OB EACO CORPORATION 1106.9%
KYN KAYNE ANDERSON MLP 1057.6%
EEA EUROPEAN EQ FUND INC 1052.6%
PEO PET RES 1035.9%
CBAY.OB CAL-BAY INTL INC 945.6%


If taxing a company because it makes money is good , then why not do it based on the % of proffit the company makes ( above and beyond the taxes allready in place) Instead of picking and choosing based on what industry is deemed as most evil by popular opinion at the time.

[1894]

Colden and Little Rickey , Just wanted to take a time out and say
A good ,polite , discusion Not sure how much longer this thread will last , so I take this time to say thank you

[colden46]

Colden and Little Rickey , Just wanted to take a time out and say
A good ,polite , discusion Not sure how much longer this thread will last , so I take this time to say thank you

Likewise

By the way, I'm not sure where that list got their data from, but it needs some fact-checking. If you look at Bionovo's latest quarterly report, it says that since inception 6 years ago they have total revenue of $659,490 (including $0 of revenue in Q1 this year), and expenses of $29,417,457. So yeah, they've got several thousand percent profit margin, it's just negative Punching a couple of the other ticker symbols in there shows negative margins as well.

The attractiveness of oil companies is that they are consistently profitable. If I'm investing for retirement or my kid's education, I would much rather invest in a company that gives me a 10% return year after year, rather than one that will grow at 10,000% one year and then lose 100% the next. Now if I was trying to make a quick buck and was willing to lose my initial investment, it'd be a different story.