On top of that, for the last decade, major military analysts have been saying that carrier groups have been made obsolete by cheap guided missiles and drones.
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On top of that, for the last decade, major military analysts have been saying that carrier groups have been made obsolete by cheap guided missiles and drones.
Um, FARMERS?!?!
At this rate, Starlink will be the solution. But wired is always faster and better than wireless.
No, it really needs to be wired up by trained electricians. I've dealt with this.
Bearing in mind that politics has an effect on markets, there's an interesting article in fivethirtyeight on Dems, candidates and voters.
We Researched Hundreds Of Races. Here’s Who Democrats Are Nominating.
We Researched Hundreds Of Races. Here’s Who Democrats Are Nominating.
I fully agree but also fear that if Elon Musk keeps ignoring the social issues that are rising globally, this ethos might be disrupted and delayed for a decade or two -- fascism is getting increasingly popular around the world nowadays... Just like the adoption of cars had to pause for WWII (see OP's graph), rising inequality threatens the transition that Elon Musk is wishing for. Social issues could delay the transition or simply cancel it due to a societal collapse that mankind never experienced.
This forum seems to admit that climate change is a huge risk but there's still very little awareness/talk about the ongoing extinction that puts life at risk here on Earth. This is far more dangerous than the "climate change thing". Climate change is only one factor of the biodiversity collapse that we're already experiencing. Stopping it requires a far bigger plan, in a much shorter time. Combine the many effects of this collapse around the world societies (while inequality keeps rising) and you'll have a hard time promoting a good ethos.
Musk seems still blind to these social issues (cf. his recent tweets about the non-issue that is inequality). I've also never heard him on the subject of the ongoing disintegration of biological ecosystems, only about climate change.
PS: if you haven't yet read about this, please read the IPBES report Assessment Report on Scenarios and Models of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services | IPBES. As for the rise of inequality, even The (neoliberal) Economist is starting to worry about its effect on democracy: As inequality grows, so does the political influence of the rich.
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For (insert favorite diety title here)’s sake, you now expect Elon to solve every problem in the world? I respectfully disagree. The man & company are making fundamental changes that over time will have a huge positive impact. Don’t lay all that other stuff on him. That’s an advice, or, at least an opinion.
Dan Detweiler
Active Member
With all due respect, this is an auto forum. How Elon choses to handle outside issues is his business. This probably isn't the place for these types of conversations.
Dan
For (insert favorite diety title here)’s sake, you now expect Elon to solve every problem in the world? I respectfully disagree. The man & company are making fundamental changes that over time will have a huge positive impact. Don’t lay all that other stuff on him. That’s an advice, or, at least an opinion.
I'm not blaming anything on Musk. Why do you imagine that I'd lay stuff on the guy who's doing the most to prevent a climate disaster?! I'm just saying that disregarding social issues is adding risks to his own business plans.
Your reaction just reinforces my belief that, like Elon Musk, many of his supporters are only ready to consider things that require no economic/political changes. I bet most people think that's naive to expect the biodiversity crisis (and a forciori, climate change) to be fixed while keeping the economic/political system unchanged. I don't expect Musk (nor you) to fix anything but just to acknowledge the gravity of the situation and the risk it represents for Tesla. For now, I believe he is intentionally ignoring it (because he would have to revise his plans and stakeholders aren't ready for such a change).
Seeing Wall Street and yellow journalism as a threat is a good start, though.
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I'm saying that Tesla might fail to complete its mission (shift the world to renewable) because its boss does not take into account the biggest obstacles to such a transition.
Am I stupid to take the company's mission seriously and literally?
By the way, I thought this was the investor sub-forum but if we can only talk about cars then: the Model 3 is great, yeah!
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Dan Detweiler
Active Member
Where's that eye rolling emogi when you need it?
Come on...we get that you feel all of the world's problems are the responsibility of anyone earning a seven figure income. This isn't the place however.
Thanks
Dan
Where did I criticize Elon for not solving every problem in the world? Where did I say that the man and the company are not making fundamental changes and having huge impact?For (insert favorite diety title here)’s sake, you now expect Elon to solve every problem in the world? I respectfully disagree. The man & company are making fundamental changes that over time will have a huge positive impact. Don’t lay all that other stuff on him. That’s an advice, or, at least an opinion.
I'm saying that the shift to renewable may require more than what conventional companies have been doing in the past century.
How do you come to this conclusion? You're not being honest, I don't speak English or you just did not read my comment.
One question: do you think the state of journalism and of the financial markets matter to Tesla Inc? I think so and I presume that Musk does too. I also understand that Elon Musk is trying to change how the financial markets and the media are preventing Tesla to complete its mission. He's also said that this is a problem not only to Tesla but for everyone trying to do good (cf. the Pravdhu project). Now, why can the media and the markets have an impact on Tesla but not social/political issues? Why did Musk join Trump's advisory council in the first place? I think he's aware of the problem but haven't yet fully revised his plan to tackle these obstacles. Maybe going private can help (I do hope so).
The world climate had changed much more dramatically than it has in the last century and the world is still here. For 90% of the last 2 million years the average world temperature was about 6C colder than it has been the last 10,000. For the bulk of world history it's been significantly warmer. The world was warm enough for about 100 million years for a shallow sea to extend from Texas to Montana. The shoreline of this sea varied a lot over time and when it rose, forests along the shore got inundated and buried in silt, where they turned into coal. Montana has a lot of coal because of this.
The world has been warmer than it is now at least three times during human's time on Earth. About 6000 BC there was several hundred years of very warm weather right about the time humans started farming. There was another warm period during the Roman era. When Hannibal's army crossed the Alps, they crossed valleys that are impassible today because there are glaciers in them. Around 1000 AD during the Medieval Warming period Vikings established self sustaining colonies in Greenland. The colonies initially kept themselves going by farming the land. In 1721 a missionary from Norway set out to convert the Viking settlers whom had been off the radar for 200 years. All he found were ruins and a few documents left behind. The colonies starved to death as the world got colder and the Little Ice Age took hold. During that same period England was known for its wine production.
Europeans began to explore the world just before the Little Ice Age hit (around 1600) and our scientific understanding of the world grew up during that time. Dickens defined what we think of as Christmas, but London hasn't been that cold in the winter since the Little Ice Age ended about the time the industrial revolution got going.
It is true that our burning of fossil fuels has increased the CO2 levels in the atmosphere, but at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution CO2 levels were among the lowest in world history. The Cliffs of Dover were created from the shells of shell fish who made their shells from dissolved CO2 in the oceans. There has been no time in the last few million years that shell fish have been that abundant. There hasn't been enough CO2 to support them.
Among scientists Geologists have studied climate longer than anyone and on much longer arcs than anyone. Also Geologists are more likely to doubt human CO2 is contributing to climate change to any large degree. But most stay quiet because they don't want to be shouted down by the rest of the world who think it's an existential threat, and most feel (even some petroleum Geologists) believe we should be moving away from fossil fuels for other reasons than CO2, so it's a matter of why people do it doesn't matter, it's just that you do it.
If the world really does warm up, whether it's primary on humans or not, it will cause flooding problems in coastal cities, some low lying islands will have problems, but it will open up new farm land in Canada and Siberia. For most of human history there has been a lot of land unusable because it's too cold. Human civilization would be challenged to move the cities to higher ground, but the threat from global warming is small compared to the other big threats we face.
Ultimately our biggest problems all stem from too many people on this planet: farm land is getting exhausted from over production year after year, the oceans are badly over fished, some mineral wealth is getting harder to find and more expensive to mine (including oil), and the world oceans are drowning in plastic. Many of these problems are coming from the developing world, not the developed world. The US, Canada, and I believe Europe have all moved to manage their fisheries in their economic zones. One of the big headaches for the US Coast Guard is chasing out poachers in US waters. The world oceans are being fished out by massive factory ships from Asia.
A study last year found 90% of the plastic in the oceans comes from a handful of rivers, all in Africa and Asia. I heard a story on NPR about the Ganges which has become an open sewer and trash bin. The river is a giant trash tip flowing into the Indian Ocean.
North America has a thin enough population to be able to feed itself quite easily. The US has been one of the biggest agricultural exporters for decades. Australia also exports a lot because they have a big continent with a small population. But Eurasia and Africa has to import a lot of food. Europe is densely populated, but they do a better job managing their resources than Asia or Africa. China and India mostly are able to feed their people with their own agriculture, but that could end soon. Both countries have been relying on ground water for their crops and China's aquifers are almost dry. India is only a few years behind.
When they run out of water, it could trigger a world food crisis that would leave 2/3 of the planet hungry.
South and Central Americas are a bit crowded, but not as bad as the "Old World".
The developed world is guilty of putting most of the extra CO2 in the atmosphere, but history has shown that if the biosphere is working, CO2 is scrubbed out of the atmosphere within a few years. There is a way of measuring the CO2 levels at points in time by measuring the stomata (pores) on the leaves of plants. When CO2 s abundant, the pores are small, and when it is thinner the stomata gets bigger.
With this method a far more accurate measure of CO2 can be taken, but we're limited to leaf samples (fossils will do) and we need to know when they are from. We have a lot of plant samples gathered during the Age of Discovery so we can see CO2 variations year to year during the time those samples were collected and compare then to today. Mount Tambora in modern day Indonesia erupted in 1815. It was so massive the dust in the atmosphere caused a short nuclear winter scenario over the next few years. It was studies of that eruption that led to the whole nuclear winter scenario.
From study of plant stomata, it looks like CO2 levels went to about 400 ppm soon after the eruption and stayed high for a few years, but by around 1820 the CO2 levels were back to their baseline of around 200 ppm. The volcano produced enough CO2 in one burp to match everything humans have done since the 1870s.
The problem is as we have burned fossil fuels we've also done a lot of damage to the biosphere. There is not as much plankton in the oceans as a few years ago and we've cut down a lot of the forests that were there in the early 1800s.
As you pointed out our destruction of the biosphere is far more of a risk that our production of CO2. But ultimately it comes back to there being too many people on this planet. We're above the carrying capacity of the world. A lot of people are aware of this, but it's the problem that is impossible to even discuss for very long. All the conclusions involve a significant number of humans dying in a short period of time. Anybody who would suggest any of the things humans can do for that problem other than limit our birthrate and hope for the best would correctly be labeled a monster.
lolachampcar
Well-Known Member
I have to take issue with one of the underlying themes of your post above.
Sure, temp swings have occurred naturally and will occur going forward. However, this should not be confused with our current discussion around the wisdom of taking millions of years of sequestered carbon and tossing it in the air (along with all the other by products of combustion). It is unwise to crap where you sleep.
In addition, figuring ways to burn fossil fuels ever more quickly puts you on the wrong side of history. If we want to be relevant as a nation (America, that is) in the future, we need to use our talents and capabilities to advance green tech, export that tech as quickly as we can and keep other people from consuming their environment as they pull themselves out of a hand to mouth existence (like we did). Its just good business sense.
Having worked in West Africa and other third world countries, I really can not argue with the rest of your points. They are spot on.
Sure, temp swings have occurred naturally and will occur going forward. However, this should not be confused with our current discussion around the wisdom of taking millions of years of sequestered carbon and tossing it in the air (along with all the other by products of combustion). It is unwise to crap where you sleep.
In addition, figuring ways to burn fossil fuels ever more quickly puts you on the wrong side of history. If we want to be relevant as a nation (America, that is) in the future, we need to use our talents and capabilities to advance green tech, export that tech as quickly as we can and keep other people from consuming their environment as they pull themselves out of a hand to mouth existence (like we did). Its just good business sense.
Having worked in West Africa and other third world countries, I really can not argue with the rest of your points. They are spot on.
dhrivnak
Active Member
A lot of partial truths here. Yes CO2 does get scrubbed out but the half life is centuries not years. Yes the world has been warmer and colder but in such conditions our HUGE investment in our built infrastructure is for naught. I for one think it would be far cheaper to move to clean energy than to move our farmbelt to Siberia
bhtooefr
Active Member
Although the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia is owned by the Saudi government.
Tesla, on the other hand, is not a United States government agency.
Wooloomooloo
Member
I'm so glad you posted that. Most Saudis (like most Iranians, most Russians, most Brits, most Americans) just want to get on with their lives and don't particularly like their governments.
Having said that, if there are Saudi royals involved, that's another matter. I would be very uncomfortable with that...
Krugerrand
Meow
I am not advocating we burn all the oil. In fact I am in favor of reducing our use as much as possible whether it is impacting world climate or not. I grew up in Los Angeles in the 60s and 70s and my sinuses and lungs are permanently scarred from my allergies to hydrocarbon pollution.
My point is that even if human's are warming the Earth with our CO2, that isn't the problem that's going to get us. The ecosystem in the ocean is collapsing. Changes in CO2 levels in the water may be contributing, but they have changed quite a bit before and life continued (we don't have the granularity in the fossil record to see what changes on the scale we're looking at today ie small compared to other disasters, had on the ecosystem over a century or so of transition). Nothing has taken so many fish out of the high and middle levels of the ecosystem before. Also nothing like plastic has very been introduced at such a scale into the environment like it has been the last 70 years.
If the ecosystem is still working, it has ways to absorb the CO2, but it has no way to deal with plastic added to the environment nor can it deal with one species (humans) hunting (over fishing) others to near extinction.
A bit of a side note. There is a graph out there for CO2 and temperature over the entire existence of Earth, but I can't find it at the moment. It has to be logarithmic to show anything significant in the last few million years. However, this graph is out there:
https://www.researchgate.net/figure...RyfFzAczcdkDgotmkMi3TE4CNE58w_-RU9GDKvtTBgylA
It shows only the last 600 millions years, which is still pretty significant. Pangaea (the Earth with one mega-continent) formed 335 million years ago and broke up 175 million years ago. There have been other periods of super continents, but that was the most recent. The Pacific was the world's only ocean and it's been shrinking since the Atlantic was formed during the Pangaea break up.
The Siberian Traps which was the biggest volcanic event in the Geologic record was about 285 million years ago. That came very close to killing all life on Earth and because of it we have oil (sea creatures were buried under sediment instead of the normal decay process). The Permian Basin (the layer that was on the surface at that time) is what Geologists look for when searching for oil. The dinosaurs died off 65 million years ago and the current ice age started about 2 million years ago.
People talk about CO2 half lives in the same way as radioactive decay. It's kind of comparing apples and oranges. CO2 absorption by the eco system is controlled by how much life there is around to absorb it (plants and shellfish), radioactive material decays at a constant rate based on the properties of the materials.
Our ecosystem is not as effective at scrubbing CO2 as it once was because we tore down forests and planted crops which absorb some CO2, but less per acre, and we have killed a lot of the marine life that also does this.
I can't find the plant stomata research on early 19th century plant samples I found a few years ago, but this is a scholarly paper on Tambora's impact:
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/2013JD019767
Figure 6 on page 12,503 (the entire PDF is 11 pages) shows the carbon anomaly from Tambora and it was mostly gone by the late 1820s. The ecosystem was healthier then though.
I’m not political and this is not about politics. But, I’ve observed a number of high profile Trump MAGA movement operatives support or are actually short Tesla using their political platforms to influence others on this specific personal financial position.
A hedge fund manager short Tesla that has been on CNBC recently is also a supporter of high profile trump operatives projects. Those he supports in political projects also post negatively about Tesla.
Azailia Banks has been known to associate with this movement. I’ve also seen some high profile trump movement operatives post her tax rant video on their political activism platforms. She’s also known for getting into celebrity fights. She’s also been taken off Twitter and has parted ways with many record labels in the past. Not known for lack of sensationalism or controversy either.
It is my speculation given her very specific mention of investor calls and “secured” tweet, and the fact that she spoke to Business Insider for direct quotes, leads me to conjecture that more short shenanigans, specifically a network of trump/maga activists.
since soon after this story dropped, these high profile political operatives were posting it on their activist platforms, which seems out of context from their normal content. It is consistent this way, Tesla seems to be a pop up theme for them, which is supported by recent overt claims of being short and posting negative content at key times in conjunction with social media support/associations with the afformentioned short hedge fund manager.
I point out this as to show a connection to a network of personalities short utilizing tactics and outlets to battle for their short position survival.
It is a desperate and dirty game, all the more reason to cut this type of distraction out by going private.
Again, the pace at which this going private will determine how desperate and disorderly shorts become in exiting their position. Case in point this rumor mill Banks soap opera.
A hedge fund manager short Tesla that has been on CNBC recently is also a supporter of high profile trump operatives projects. Those he supports in political projects also post negatively about Tesla.
Azailia Banks has been known to associate with this movement. I’ve also seen some high profile trump movement operatives post her tax rant video on their political activism platforms. She’s also known for getting into celebrity fights. She’s also been taken off Twitter and has parted ways with many record labels in the past. Not known for lack of sensationalism or controversy either.
It is my speculation given her very specific mention of investor calls and “secured” tweet, and the fact that she spoke to Business Insider for direct quotes, leads me to conjecture that more short shenanigans, specifically a network of trump/maga activists.
since soon after this story dropped, these high profile political operatives were posting it on their activist platforms, which seems out of context from their normal content. It is consistent this way, Tesla seems to be a pop up theme for them, which is supported by recent overt claims of being short and posting negative content at key times in conjunction with social media support/associations with the afformentioned short hedge fund manager.
I point out this as to show a connection to a network of personalities short utilizing tactics and outlets to battle for their short position survival.
It is a desperate and dirty game, all the more reason to cut this type of distraction out by going private.
Again, the pace at which this going private will determine how desperate and disorderly shorts become in exiting their position. Case in point this rumor mill Banks soap opera.
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