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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Mar 10, 2014 - 11:52pm PT
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Look. I work for smallish independent companies. The closest I ever got to this imaginary "big oil" was a year consulting in New Ventures at Chesapeake. It was a great place to work, but I was working a mid-continent play.
I heard that they had to sell their Marcellus holdings. When natural gas prices collapsed, they had trouble servicing their large debt. The CEO was punted, they installed a new BOD, and they have been selling assets to reduce their debt while also trying to increase their liquids exposure.
I've been doing this for a long time. None of these historical events is much of a secret. If any of you followed oil and gas prices and activity, you would understand what drives markets.
It directly affects me, so I have to follow prices, plays, etc.
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wilbeer
Mountain climber
honeoye falls,ny.greeneck alleghenys
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Mar 11, 2014 - 12:26am PT
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Base,I would not diss any mans living,I had not known of Chesapeakes demise.
I do not follow prices,plays etc. myself.
Tvash was right,places like Seattle,Lib cities out east here,they want to not care about oil,they will change things themselves.
I am in a Biodiesel club,do you have any of those over there?
Just saying ,I do not want to claim any high ground,just want to let you know.
I install Solar,on homes,part of my carpentry business.
If that can work in Western New York,It can work throughout the U.S.A.
Yet it is talked about here as if it were destructive.
Peace.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Mar 11, 2014 - 02:58am PT
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It is precisely THIS kind of thinking (opportunity cost of raping and pillaging) that's sending humanity down the shihtter. [
It's precisely that type of thinking that led to the excesses of the French Revolution. An apocryphal story says that Louis XVI was shown a potato plant as a possible way to keep the peasants from starving, but Marie Antoinette forbade the harvesting of potatoes because doing so destroyed their flowers. One person's rape is another person's necessity. We're merely dealing with differing preferences.
Any human process that is not sustainable is, by definition, exploitative.
By whose definition? I can think of any variety of human processes that will not last forever, but are perfectly logical because human society and technology changes over time. If I were to follow your logic, we need to get rid of about 90% of humanity so the remaining ten percent can be sustained by the primitive, sustainable, non-"exploitive" human processes available to us.
The arguments presented on this thread by KXL critics strike me as particularly hypocritical coming from climbers that use steel, aluminum, and nylon. When I see the KXL critics climbing with their manila ropes protected solely by stones and wood used as chocks I might listen. Otherwise, the high moral dudgeon doesn't belong in this discussion.
John
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Mar 11, 2014 - 10:46am PT
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Compared to the American Revolution, which happened right around the same time, France did ramp up the level of violence way beyond what was necessary.
The whole thing could have been accomplished without beheading anybody.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Mar 11, 2014 - 11:27am PT
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2 houses on my street installed PV this year.
I look up the block and see a prius, diesel golf, leaf, iQ, Smartcar, and a mini.
All but 4 houses have street trees, now. Nearly every house has a garden.
The destined-for-collapse elevated freeway through downtown is coming down, and a new walkable waterfront is going in.
My peeps here want and embrace change. We don't want to continue relying on oil, so we act to mitigate its effects.
I like living in a place that looks forward and puts its money where its mouth is to actively take on the problems that we face.
As a climber in a glaciated range, I see climate change happening every time I go out. The Honeycomb Glacier is 3 miles shorter than it was when it was surveyed in 1962. I went through the area in 2004 and an entire 1/2 mile diameter glacial lobe I'd camped in the middle of a decade before was bare rock. All of our 300+ glaciers are in rapid retreat. Go a little further east and 30% of the trees are dying from a pine beetle infestation that was almost non-existent prior to 2000.
The propensity for humans to deny what they don't like is an evolved trait, but its awfully hard to maintain that fantasy around here.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Mar 11, 2014 - 11:39am PT
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Ah, Vive la French Revolution! and what a venerable, well worn meme it is.
The French Revolution's violence was often cited to denigrate Thomas Paine's Freethinker (secularist) writings.
That same meme, 2 centuries later, thrives on the innernut. It goes something like this:
Librulism + Populism - God = Guillotine! (or Stalin - preferred by today's Innernut Gladiator).
If I had a franc for every time some Defender of Freedom Fries trotted out Trotsky when discussing KommieKare, I could buy Versailles instead of just mowing its lawn.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Mar 11, 2014 - 11:55am PT
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I'm referring to anthropogenic climate change, and you know it, Ron.
No one's denied that? You just did.
Keep it real.
I suspect at some level you don't believe your denial any more than we do. Solidarity with your peeps is fine, but when you take it too far, you're really not doing your peeps any favors.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Mar 11, 2014 - 12:19pm PT
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Yes, the 'hypocrites need not apply' argument - just as powerful the millionth time!
It goes like this: If you are a modern human and use fossil fuel generated power, you are not qualified to try to reduce that fossil fuel use.
Again, this is a bullshit shout down argument that attempts the drag down those who actually are working to change things to the level of those deniers who remain solidly on their asses.
As with all 'do nothing' arguments: Ignore.
Next, please....
Change is incremental. If you buy a car that gets 10 more mpg - or plant a tree, work from home a day a week, turn your thermostat down 1 degree, or make any incremental change in the right direction at all - you're solidly part of the solution. That is precisely how long term change happens.
The revolution is seldom televised.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Mar 11, 2014 - 12:25pm PT
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If that's the relationship you want to have with your home world, then have it.
And we'll do things our way.
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Mar 11, 2014 - 12:29pm PT
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Hey Tvash,
I like that elevated highway running up the Seattle Waterfront.
That's one of the top-ten prettiest drives on the entire West Coast. ( At least going north it is, because you're on the top deck with the bitchen view going north. Headed south, not so much. )
Starting at the West Seattle Bridge, and going north, you've got a hell of a view of the Puget Sound, the Waterfront, the docks, ferry terminals, big-ass ferris wheel, cruise ships to the left. The ballparks, Downtown, Pikes Market on the right. The Space Needle right in your windshield.
On that one section of highway, you get the best views of all that classic Seattle sh#t, then you hit the tunnel, and it's done. Wow, what a drive.
Seattle's a damn scenic city, too. Right up there with San Francisco for #1 on the West Coast.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Mar 11, 2014 - 12:38pm PT
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It's actually working out quite well so far.
Per capita CO2 emission in the United States have dropped 14% since their peak of 20 tonnes per year in 2000. CO2 is still building up (the US emits a quarter of the world's contribution of it), and we continue to export dirty fuels to China - so the net effect isn't a reduction, but our country is one place where substantial change is happening and the data shows that.
Seattle has a carbon neutral goal for 2050, and while that sounds far away - the city is tracking to achieve that, primarily though increased urban density, green buildings, subsidies for green home improvement, and improvements in our transportation systems.
Doing nothing is easier - I will grant you that.
Some of use prefer to help out, however.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Mar 11, 2014 - 12:43pm PT
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I like the view from the Viaduct, too - but it's gonna collapse when the big one hits. Ask anyone from Oakland. Ain't no gettin' around that.
Seattle's downtown waterfront sucks shweaty ballz, and the Viaduct is part of that. I just spent the weekend in the Van - which has a wonderful, walkable waterfront. I lived in Portland - same. What a different that makes!
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Chaz
Trad climber
greater Boss Angeles area
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Mar 11, 2014 - 12:51pm PT
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The Viaduct looks like it's about ready to collapse on its own right now, Tvash. Big One or no Big One.
I'll drive over it, but I'll never park under it.
Whatever happened to that tunnel-machine? Last I heard, it's become a big blue butt plug, stuck under Downtown.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Mar 11, 2014 - 12:53pm PT
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I'm impressed at how they've kept the traffic flowing through the clusterfk.
Our transportation secretary rocks.
Last I checked Bertha's still updating her FB page from the comfort of her burrow. Two issues - she hit a hidden pipe, but the main issue is probably more of a design flaw - all 7 of the outer seals that protect her main bearing are damaged. That's unusual. It'll take a few months to fix. The main bearing's OK, though - its inner seals remain intact.
This is what happens when you do new stuff that's hard. Nobody remembers that 10 guys were killed when their scaffold collapsed during construction of the Golden Gate Bridge. Nobody will remember this, either.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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Mar 11, 2014 - 01:56pm PT
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While I applaud the attitude of at least some people in Seattle, The Chief's constant false dichotomy rings a little bit true. I can promise you that per capita oil use in Seattle is quite a bit higher than per capita use in Bangledesh.
He is wrong that not doing everything is hypocritical, though. We have to start somewhere, and the first steps to get us off of oil are important. I've posted the numbers before, but the U.S. uses more oil per capita than any nation on Earth. A lot of it is simply wasted due to bad habits. It is still too cheap. When it gets expensive enough, then you will see a surge to alternatives such as natural gas.
The first step should be a switch to natural gas. We are swimming in it.
It also makes sense from a national security perspective. We import over half of our oil consumption despite being one of the top producers in the world.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Mar 11, 2014 - 02:19pm PT
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I guess I shouldn't be surprised that my rhetoric created a storm of indignation. My bad.
I'm not criticizing the idea that we need to take first steps, such as conversion to natural gas, nor am I criticizing the need to develop a long-term, sustainable human process.
Rather, I'm criticizing rhetoric that used "rape and pillage" and "exploitive" in unhelpful and, in my opinion, inaccurate ways. The metal products we use in climbing come from that "raping and pillaging," and the petroleum we use comes from an "exploitive" process.
I would say, in contrast, that an unsustainable human process is, by definition, not in long-term equilibrium. "Exploitive" is too loaded to make for a calm discussion seeking mutual solutions. Similarly, "rape and pillage" strikes me as an inappropriate reference to environmental change that, in the long term, may not be nearly as bad as mining opponents make it out to be.
Unfortunately, I lapsed into the same sort of inflammatory language myself.
Mea cupla.
John
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AP
Trad climber
Calgary
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Mar 11, 2014 - 02:21pm PT
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Keystone will be the safest pipeline in the entire continent because it will be new and built to high standards. The US and Canada are crisscrossed with thousands of 50-60 year old pipelines that have a 50 year design life. These are the dangerous ones.
If Keystone does not get built do you think the tar sands won't be developed? Get yours heads out of your asses folks.
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Hoser
climber
vancouver
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Mar 11, 2014 - 02:42pm PT
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It is still too cheap. When it gets expensive enough, then you will see a surge to alternatives such as natural gas.
The first step should be a switch to natural gas. We are swimming in it.
That happens by not approving pipelines that transport cheap oil. Currently there is so much oil in North America that the price per barrel is almost too low to make a profit, hence the offshore needs.
Why do you think approving KXL is going to increase this supply at a further loss in price? Isnt the whole idea to get it to port to ship it out as synthetic crude instead of dilbit?
If Keystone does not get built do you think the tar sands won't be developed? Get yours heads out of your asses folks.
Well they are landlocked you know...with no way out that doesnt require a national or presidential approval....
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Hoser
climber
vancouver
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Mar 11, 2014 - 03:00pm PT
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Any time you cross a provincial border requires a national approval hence the NEB has to write the report. As a province we cannot say NO but we can place imposing conditions to try and stop it, such as the 5 that christy laid out.
I think the law is extremely vague into what constitutes a fair consultation and accommodation of first nations. This is one of the 5 conditions, even though it had to happen anyways.
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Dave
Mountain climber
the ANTI-fresno
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Mar 11, 2014 - 03:30pm PT
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Somebody referenced the 1872 Mining Law... so I am going to jump in...
The last company I worked for was working on the alternate pipeline from Alberta to Vancouver. One way or another, the oil from Alberta will get to market. Now it is on rail cars, which is expensive, much more prone to leaks and accidents than pipelines, and releases additional carbon. Fighting pipelines when oil is moved by rail currently is counter to the environmentalists' "goals" of reducing carbon and increasing safety - it shows they are just anti-development.
As long as there is demand (i.e. lots of people and a price higher than the cost to get it out of the ground and ship it), oilsands oil will find a market.
Just like metals... We have some of the best environmental practices in the world. Would you rather mine the minerals that go into your cell phone here and create the jobs and taxes here, and do it as cleanly as possible, or pollute the hell out of, say, the Congo where there are no rules? Because again - there is demand for the product and someone somewhere is going to fill it.
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