I’d settle for neutral any day but with the money and access available to the oil lobby it isn’t. What price do you put on put on a few extra hurricanes or a dozen additional tornadoes. The power of these comes from heat energy stored in the oceans and atmosphere. Hard to measure and harder still to put a dollar cost to but without any doubt whatsoever the finger points solely and exclusively at fossil fuels. Spend some time critically thinking about that one.
+1
Then there’s the cost in lives lost in the wars fought over this resource. The taxes spent on men and munitions don’t come from the pump. What do you call that kind of subsidy? I would shout for joy at real critical thinking. “It costs too much” is a total load. It isn’t free, nothing is, least of all gas.
Well, I don’t count wars because wars have been started for really stupid reasons. At least gasoline has value, so it’s logical to fight over it. Not condoning war, just saying that stupid people do stupid things, and I wouldn’t blame gasoline for that. I don’t see anybody calling to ban diamonds, gold, or Nike Air Jordans because of people killing for them. As for warming the oceans and such, I guess some people wouldn’t be happy in a tropical world, but I personally know some people that would be glad to never see winter again. (I happen to like snow and ice) I suppose I’m just a bit cynical because I see so many of the arguments about human-caused catastrophic climate change being debunked by the next scientist that studies the weather. I admit I don’t care enough to study it for myself. But, I still want better energy production resources, and good quality but cheap LED lighting, not to save the Earth, but to save my wallet!
Wow. I just had to quote this for posterity sake.
No need. I’m not the kind of person who gets offended and deletes all his posts and runs off. 
I understand that my opinions are sometimes odd. But, it’s actually very easy to get me to change my mind. Just present the facts to me. I always agree with facts when I get a chance. For instance, here’s a fact. You’re making carbon dioxide right now. Yes you, just by breathing, are polluting our atmosphere and contributing to catastrophic climate change! There are some crazy people pushing the climate change propaganda machine (not saying that it’s all propaganda, but there is a lot of it). If carbon dioxide gets the treatment some of those people think it deserves, you’ll have to have permission to breathe. That alone should make you wonder how much of the ‘science’ of climate change is real and how much of it is a figment of somebody’s imagination.
Show me real science and I will agree with it every time. But real science doesn’t ever have emotion attached to it. Real science doesn’t push people’s buttons. Real science just tells you what it sees and leaves you to decide what to think about that. In fact, real science never draws any final conclusions, for real science is always checking itself to see whether a better, more accurate conclusion may be forthcoming. I haven’t seen much in the way of real science from the climate change crowd yet. But, as I said before, I haven’t studied it myself. So it’s really a matter that I just don’t know. I’m definitely open to any unbiased scientific information that anybody wants to provide.
Here’s another thing to note. There are people on this Earth who, by nature, are inclined to emotional extremism, exaggeration, and alarmism. I don’t have anything against those people. I don’t think there’s something wrong with them, or that they need to calm down, take a chill pill, or whatever. On the contrary, I understand that the world needs people like that. They are usually the first ones to recognize danger coming, and call for action to prevent that danger. I’m not one of those people. I’m naturally inclined to be at the other end of the line. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that either. 
Wow, when the facts aren’t what you like just pretend they don’t count. Huh?
Or you can always just change them to suit
— speechless —
If you are as open minded as you claim
https://thinkprogress.org/solar-low-price-record-68db04b796b3#.x73mfzu3v
+1
And one more:
http://blog.solarcity.com/how-much-land-would-it-take-to-power-the-u-s-with-solar-energy/
Thanks, Bort, I’ve learned a lot in the last hour reading those articles! 
Your welcome, you can spend many hours learning more about the renewable energy field, articles such as these give policy ideas on how to deal with challenges (though sometimes they can be over optimistic, trust but verify)
Following the daily articles on cleantechnica and thinkprogress is a good start, depending on your interests (solar, wind, distributed power, energy storage, lithium batteries, tidal power, energy efficient buildings (and retrofits), conservation and demand management, hydropower, policy and subsidies and much more) you can find and follow countless sources out there to learn more about these
An interesting article on the tanker industry Eschewing safety for profit margins. Changing flag registries when not able to pass inspections etc. but mostly about rust and how the industry is or isn’t dealing with it.
Wow, that is definitely interesting, too, and right along with a lot of what I’d already encountered which makes me so skeptical of ‘Global Warming’ aka ‘Climate Change’.
“Flag of Convenience” is a euphemism for near-slavery sometimes :rage: And even totally land-locked countries without a sea or connection to a sea are now in the “Flag” business. In the maritime world the least-seen flag is USA because our standards are some of the highest (along with the costs). It not just oilers but every ship.
But don’t worry- everything petroleum in the US is kept as minimal as they can get away with which is less than the law allows. Dangerous things only get fixed when the Government is about to shut them down, or when the cost of leaving it alone will exceed the cheapest patchwork repair possible that will get a government ‘pass’ so they can continue to feed the greedy stockholders who only care about profit margins 
Phil
>Telegraph … climate … booker
I won’t go into it here.
Stay skeptical. You can look this stuff up — that’s an old 2015 article.
You’ll find ample commentary about Booker if you look him up.
It really, really, shouldn’t become a discussion here. It’s fraught.
many vote to expand the harm because they choose to believe the government caused the danger
Most main media like NYT and Washington Post are no longer acting as journalists, They only pass out press releases from government or corporations without being examined.
I won’t go into that here either.
I recommend looking this stuff up; Google Scholar* (and even better, the librarian at the Reference Desk at your nearby public or college library).
_
- empty your cache, block cookies, sign out of everything that tracks you first — evade the filter bubble that shows you more of what makes you want to click more.