Lou Grinzo’s Recent Comments

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  Kunstler

  Funny you should mention Kunstler.  Almost exactly a year ago I posted a long piece on my site with excerpts from an interview he did with a Rochester NY-area paper.

  Some of his views are "curious", to put it mildly.  When asked about wind power, he said, "I think that mostly what we will see is these things being used on a household basis, or the extremely local basis, if at all."  And on cars, "I think driving is going to be an enormous problem for us and it will take on tragic overtones for the younger generation."

  My post is here.
  On Friedman in the NYT Magazine posted 2 years, 7 months ago 13 Responses

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  It's all bad journalism and entrenched interest

  Two things here:

  First, a lot of the media is interested in just one thing: Keeping "the debate" going as long and as loudly as possible.  It gets them readers and viewers, and that's all they care about.

  Second, there are people who will put their private financial interests ahead of everything, including climate science and peak oil, no matter how many experts you can line up to tell them they're wrong.

  This argument won't go away anytime soon.  Heck, we're still fighting evolution vs. creationism; the global warming deniers will keep arguing until there are palm trees in Alaska and 5 feet of water on the streets of Manhattan.On Wherein we puzzle through the truthiness posted 2 years, 8 months ago 4 Responses

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  The cloud

  I'm always saying on my site and in presentations that there's a conceptual cloud of reasons that motivates people on energy + environmental issues.  Some want to use less energy simply to save money.  Some want to stop exporting money and adding to the US's trade imbalance.  Others are concerned about reducing GHG emissions or preparing for the advent of peak oil and peak natural gas or national security issues.

  In most cases the individual things in the cloud all point to the same conclusion: Use less fossil fuel through conservation and transitioning to alternatives.  

  As Jason pointed out, there can be a problem with coal as well as other nasty details, like what the heck do we do with the 55,000 metric tons (and growing) of nuclear waste in the US, etc.

  But there's enough common ground that it's possible to get people moving in the right direction.  Capturing mindshare and overcoming the paralysis of ignorance that most newbies experience is the big battle. On Good communication strategy posted 2 years, 8 months ago 7 Responses

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  The Inhofe Scale

  This morning I announced The Inhofe Scale, a way to measure the willful detachment from reality of statements regarding global warming and peak oil.

  It's here on The Cost of EnergyOn Memo to Inhofe: posted 2 years, 8 months ago 4 Responses