UN Backs Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaign 190
mdsolar sends this report from The Guardian:
The UN organization in charge of global climate change negotiations is backing the fast-growing campaign persuading investors to sell off their fossil fuel assets. It said it was lending its "moral authority" to the divestment campaign because it shared the ambition to get a strong deal to tackle global warming at a crunch UN summit in Paris in December.
The move is likely to be controversial as the economies of many nations at the negotiating table heavily rely on coal, oil and gas. In 2013, coal-reliant Poland hosted the UNFCCC summit and was castigated for arranging a global coal industry summit alongside. Now, the World Coal Association has criticized the UNFCCC's decision to back divestment, saying it threatened investment in cleaner coal technologies.
The move is likely to be controversial as the economies of many nations at the negotiating table heavily rely on coal, oil and gas. In 2013, coal-reliant Poland hosted the UNFCCC summit and was castigated for arranging a global coal industry summit alongside. Now, the World Coal Association has criticized the UNFCCC's decision to back divestment, saying it threatened investment in cleaner coal technologies.
Well just maybe (Score:4, Insightful)
UN please go. (Score:2, Insightful)
Whenever an economic or scientific question becomes politicized, a pandora's box of unintended consequences is just waiting to jump out. The only saving grace to the UN pushing for divesting fossil fuel investments is that they are completely incompetent, and even more lacking in 'teeth'.
I'm not a huge fan of coal, but you know what I like even less? Squeezing poor countries (and by extension, poor people) -- the developed world can afford to pay more per KW/h, as well as put money into the R&D for al
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Stow the outrage. that's not what i'm saying at all. I'm saying that the choice to use, or invest in fossil fuels should NOT be a political decision handed down by the UN.
Further, the effects of that choice would be disproportionately felt by the developing world.
The World Coal Assoc. doesn't get it (Score:3, Insightful)
We don't need "cleaner coal technologies." We need coal to be GONE. The same goes for pretty much *all* carbon-intensive fossil-fuel industries.
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The money being used to fund "clean coal" should be directed to something that is actually clean, like development of fusion technology.
No one guaranteed the fossil fuels industries a right to earn profit in perpetuity. Fuck 'em.
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We need coal to be GONE.
We're working on it as fast as we can.
Moral bankruptcy (Score:4, Interesting)
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Adam Smith, +1 (Score:3)
Of course, as all these firms divest themselves of the oil industry and demand drops, the price for oil will drop as well, making it even more attractive to those needing to save a buck.
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Look, I'm all for removing subsidies from ALL energy industries, and letting the fair market have her way with them - not just the renewables, but absolutely the petro-firms.*
*this includes not just direct subsidies, but indirect: tax breaks, increment financing, free use of public lands and waters for exploration, etc, etc.
But I think you (and the "divestor" movement) have it backwards. The public funding that comes from stocks raises capital, sure, but that's hardly their primary sources of revenue. I'd
Heading away from gasoline/diesel anyway. (Score:3)
I think now that we may be on the verge of major breakthroughs in battery technology, we could soon see the beginning of the end of using gasoline and diesel fuel for motor vehicles anyway.
Around 2010, Volkswagen Chairman Martin Winterkorn predicted that by 2020, a vehicle about the size of today's VW Golf model--with similar carrying capacity in terms of passengers and cargo--could travel 800 km (497 miles) on a single full charge of the car's electric battery pack. Thanks to new forms of lithium-ion batteries that use dry electrodes and graphene sheets and carbon nanotube supercapacitors, such a goal may not be such a far-fetched idea; if Winterkorn's prediction proves true, that will truly start the transition from away from using internal combustion engines fueled by gasoline or diesel fuel for personal vehicles.
However, gasoline and diesel fuel will be around longer until the change I mention above is complete, thanks to new industrial catalysts ("cat crackers") that can convert natural gas into very clean-burning forms of gasoline and diesel fuel--and it will be cheap to make, too. This will provide a "bridge" of fuel technology until long-range electric cars I described earlier become common.
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Some people think "natural gas" is some be-all, end-all solution that magically reduces the carbon footprint or that is available in unimaginable quantities. It's not. There are limited reserves of natural gas available, and if it were to be used up to produce synthetic gasoline, the vast majority of North America would have a serious problem with home heating systems and the prices of the fuel for them.
You think it costs a lot to heat your home with gas now? Just wait until some bozo wants to buy up
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The only way to divert climate change without causing an economic catastrophe is to give people different options and then very gradually, carefully make those the only options, just like what's already happening.
Or simply not do it at all. What I find annoying about this sort of argument is the lack of evidence supporting the need for "diverting" climate change. Maybe instead of speculating about the personal responsibility of people for problems that might not be problems, we could instead find evidence to support our convictions?
For example, I see evidence from the mild increase in global warming over the past century, that the long term temperature forcing of carbon dioxide is at the very bottom of the IPCC's
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What is more likely? A) Most of humanity has constructed this particular silly and elaborate moral rationalization for why they aren't doing anything about climate change or B) Most of humanity don't have climate change anywhere near the top of the list of serious problems they're worried about.
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Or maybe you're just the kind of person who can't handle being told that they're wrong. Is that it? Do you think you're a god?
Or maybe you benefit from the status
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Most of humanity does not agree with you, and most of humanity doesn't constantly have it on their mind because it's not constantly brought up or they can't constantly do something about it personally.
Well, let's look [pewresearch.org] then. According to that linked poll, 46% of 39 sampled country's respondents didn't think that or doesn't know if climate change is a major threat. This includes 60% of the US and China's population. Note that the poll doesn't even ask if climate change is a "top problem", just whether it is a major problem or not.
Another poll indicates [thinkprogress.org] that India, the big country missing from the first poll, has very similar attitudes to the US and China on climate change. At this point, we have roughly
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I don't have to justify anything to you, and I'm not talking about beliefs. This doesn't have anything to do with beliefs. You can't just believe hard enough and make reality as you want
Natural gas should be a strategic resoruce (Score:2)
Cracking (Score:2)
Clean Coal, (Score:3)
Re: How about more solar education? (Score:5, Informative)
You are not even close to correct with regards to energy payback for photovoltaics. They recover their energy inputs in 1-4 years
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_energy_gain
Re: How about more solar education? (Score:4, Interesting)
Wikipedia cite FAIL. If you did this in a paper, you'd fail the class.
This isn't academia. This is Slashdot. Wikipedia is an acceptable citation here. If you think there is inaccurate information on the cited page, then point it out. But whining about other people's citations, while presenting none of your own, is childish.
Mistake (Score:5, Informative)
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In sunny southern Europe.
So, what's the payback time in Sweden? Or Canada? Or even New York State?
Note that I've been considering solar for my own house. Even with the 80% subsidy my governments offer, it won't break even in less than five years unless I cut down every tree in my backyard first.
And if I do that, the cost of cutting the trees would stretch the payback out into the ten year range.
And that's not e
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So, what's the payback time in Sweden?
About 4 years. Not bad for a panel that will last for 15.
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Note that I've been considering solar for my own house. Even with the 80% subsidy my governments offer, it won't break even in less than five years unless I cut down every tree in my backyard first.
Note that not everywhere is suitable for a solar install. So what?
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For me, it is not "why put up panels", it is "why not?"
Solar won't drive my A/C here in Austin... But, I can do two things with a roof full of panels:
1: I can have the panels plug into an inverter and have it feed the grid.
2: I can buy a set of storage batteries and have them feed that.
Option #1 is nice, but option #2 is quite useful, especially when Elon Musk's Tesla starts offering battery banks for houses. Done right, this will be a whole-house UPS that gets a good chunk of its power from panels.
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Yeah, a couple, like since the 1970's. This old canard is just PURE FUD, it was never true, never even half true, etc.
Re: How about more solar education? (Score:5, Informative)
There is every reason to consider the cost of the power inputs that are required to produce green energy.
Overly optimistic calculations made ethanol from corn look like a great thing because they did not consider the energy that is spent creating the farm equipment, sowing and harvesting the corn etc
Anybody coming to the table with a 'new' power source that seems to ignore these costs should be sent packing to do their homework
Basic Facts (Score:3)
The truth can be determined with FIVE MINUTES of looking, and invariably the people who are trotting out this "solar panels use more energy than you get" BULLSHIT aren't interested in facts. Its an outright lie that someone has perpetrated on the public and the people who continue to circulate it are either VERY ignorant, like they haven't read Wikipedia, or they're actively dishonest. There's no legitimate skepticism involved at this point. If someone had brought this up 20 years ago we'd have all scratche
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My assessment comes from what I pay at the pump, or from my local utility company
If it does not include their costs, then they will go out of business, there are some caveats below:
In the case of fossil fuels, they have been giving a free pass on recognizing the costs of their pollution by the politicians (usually on the right) that they provide donations to. If fossil fuels (coal in particular) had to limit their release of pollutants (including CO2) to a similar level that nuclear power has to demonstrate
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This is something that nuclear power has demonstrated, even when faced with extra costs of lawsuits that are placed on them by the environmental and nimby movements
The 2005 Energy act specifically put measures in place that prevents ordinary people from intefering with the placement of a nuclear reactor. It is impossible for a normal person, or a local community, under the law, to prevent the placement of a nuclear reactor in their community.
Nuclear power has too many establishment, operational and ongoing costs to be an attractive investment anymore. The existence of the Price-Anderson act shows investors that Nuclear power is an investment oxymoron. If it waa safe
Read and learn then (Score:2)
http://www.lazard.com/PDF/Leve... [lazard.com]
Clearly the LCOE for SPV and ST (even with storage) is NOW competitive with nuclear power. Its probably not yet competitive with NG, but again NG is getting a free pass on CO2 and other issues. Given that recent research suggests that the actual social cost of carbon may be as high as $1000/ton we're pretty sure at this point that SPV is a huge good deal. Why do you think it is growing by leaps and bounds?
Yes, of course subsidies help, but they don't even cancel out 10% of t
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Yes, but the cost of pollution is practically free to those who produce it. Just look at New Jersey. It just takes a little persuading of those with potential campaign contributions to launder.
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10 myths about fossil fuel divestment (Score:5, Interesting)
Fossil fuel divestment makes for smart money (Score:4, Interesting)
The reality is that the smart money is now with those who divest in fossil fuels first and put their earnings in alternative energy stocks will be the big winners and those who are left holding fossil fuel stocks until they finally collapse the big losers, which rather than a complete collapse will be like a leaky tire, loosing its value steadily over time, while production costs continue to climb. State investment funds, universities, and trusts in progressive states are already lightening up on fossil fuels, so their shareholders will come out ahead. When things are going south, as they now are for the fossil fuels industry, its always best to be out the door before the other guy figures out what is happening. By the time the negative outflows reach about 5% it will probably be too late for most to divest.
With the price of crude set to fall, some like CITI Bank say into the $30/barrel range, as current inventories increase to maximum capacity in about 3-6 months forcing excess supply onto the open market, alternative energy stocks will also take a hit, but unlike fossil fuel stocks, it will be an excellent opportunity to buy them as they will increase at a relatively more rapid pace than fossil fuels will recover, if they ever recover. At the current rate of increases in efficiency in production and operation of solar and wind, look for 2017-2019 to be the time when it solar and wind to be be cheaper than fossil fuels, no matter how much crude is on the market.
Get out of fossil fuel stocks while you still have a profit and leave others holding the bag.
Re:Fossil fuel divestment makes for smart money (Score:5, Informative)
You are joking right???
World wide coal consumption has increased EVERY year for the past 30 years and is predicted to continuing increasing for the next 30. In the last decade coal consumption has sky rocketed. The reason the price is low at the moment is because too many supplies came on tap at the same time.
As for the oil price, again you are seeing a battle for market share. Irrespective of that oil is rarely used for electricity generation and is predominately used for transport. As it stands electricity, no matter how it is generated, is incapable to replacing oil for transport.
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In the last decade coal consumption has sky rocketed.
Past performance is not an indication of future returns.
China is embarrassed by the choking pollution from its coal plants and is either replacing them with cleaner energy or moving them to the middle of no where.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/05/us-china-parliament-ndrc-idUSKBN0M108V20150305 [reuters.com]
Mar 5, 2015
The [Chinese] National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said in its annual report on Thursday that it would implement policies aimed at reducing coal consumption and controlling the number of energy-intensive projects in polluted regions.
China is trying to strike a balance between improving its environment and restructuring away from an economy dominated by energy intensive industries like steel making and construction towards one focused more on consumption and the service sector.
Which is interesting that China is still pursuing the Nicaraguan canal so it can more easily access South America's resources.
Before the canal, China was considering building a railway across Columbia
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Firstly previous performance absolutely IS an indication of future returns. It is the yard stick by which all business are measured. It is however not a guarantee of future performance. And when you are looking at something like power generation, with lead times measured in the years for plant construction then yes you absolutely do look at past performance.
Two years ago China had 363 coal fired powerplants in the construction pipeline. India had 455 coal power plants in the approvals list. Solar and w
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Replying to undo incorrect mod. But your first sentence doesn't make much sense.
Coal use predicted to peak soon (Score:2)
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From the International Energy Agency - https://www.iea.org/newsrooman... [iea.org]
15 December 2014 Paris
Global demand for coal over the next five years will continue marching higher, breaking the 9-billion-tonne level by 2019, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its annual Medium-Term Coal Market Report released today. The report notes that despite China's efforts to moderate its coal consumption, it will still account for three-fifths of demand growth during the outlook period. Moreover, China will be jo
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If the cost of producing oil is rising and the price is falling, some producers are going to face a squeeze.
Yes they will, and some will go bankrupt... but that doesn't remove the oil, gas, and coal from the market... those become assets to be sold at the bankruptcy sale, someone else will buy them on the cheap and then develop them using a lower cost basis...
From our point of view as consumers, nothing will change...
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yeah so instead of peak oil we got BOTTOM oil.
shows it to all the peak oil dolts.
they've switched to peak gold shenigans now though.
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We're still getting peak oil. In fact, we're already past peak conventional oil. The shale oil bubble was unexpected, and is providing some temporary relief, but that doesn't mean the peak oil theory is wrong. Shale oil will also peak.
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Peak oil is a mathematical certainty. One day we will be no longer using oil. This means it is mathematically certain at some point there will be a global maximum to the oil production function.
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The reality is that the smart money is now with those who divest in fossil fuels first and put their earnings in alternative energy stocks will be the big winners and those who are left holding fossil fuel stocks until they finally collapse the big losers, which rather than a complete collapse will be like a leaky tire, loosing its value steadily over time, while production costs continue to climb. State investment funds, universities, and trusts in progressive states are already lightening up on fossil fuels, so their shareholders will come out ahead.
Yeah, nothing kills an industry like low prices and near ubiquity.
You guys actually believe this stuff, don't you?
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"nothing kills an industry like low prices and near ubiquity."
The problem is of course, the 800 pound gorilla of carbon dioxide pollution in the room. Its the inconvenient truth around which you can try to fake it, but the reality of it is now just starting to bite.
Sure some folks in Phoenix will still be buying gasoline when the temperatures in summer routinely hit 130 F, but you can be sure not many people will be happy about it. The reality is that politics might shift the costs of fossil fuels but it
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If you think the boards, shareholders, and major pension funds holding these companies are stupid or somehow you see something they don't you're a fool. They are more in
specifically, Nature says the top solar company is (Score:4, Funny)
>. The reality is that the smart money is now with those who divest in fossil fuels first and put their earnings in alternative energy stocks will be the big winners
To be a bit more specific, the journal Nature has called Nanosolar "the poster child for Silicon Valley's interest in solar power". That sounds like an interesting stock. You might want to consider putting some of your money in that company.
Six years after Nature started pumping Nanosolar, in 2012 they announced they planned to actually start making solar panels pretty soon. I understand their stock is _real_ cheap right now.
Also, I heard Obama is backing two other promising companies, Fisker and Solyndra. He says they'll do great, so you might scoop up some of their stock.
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when it solar and wind to be be cheaper than fossil fuels, no matter how much crude is on the market.
Almost no crude oil is used for electricity generation. You show the typical level of ignorance for someone dishing out free stock tips.
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The largest alternative energy related investors and shareholders are the large oil companies. People talk as if the people running the large oil companies are idiots and blind to the possibility of a decrease in fossil fuel usage. If and when that happens they want to make sure they maintain their dominance and profitability positions in the energy markets no matter what form that energy takes.
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One of the biggest uses of natural gas is electricity production and it is absurdly inexpensive.
^ Truth... our power rates haven't changed in 10 years, we are part of a co-op that runs on a not-for-profit basis and pays us back anything left over in the form of capital credits (I'm still getting small checks from capital credits from 10 years ago)
I pay 11 cents per kw/h, this hasn't changed in many years... natural gas is part of the reason, cheaper coal is another, both sources are where we get all our power...
Solar can't touch that rate, I've priced it, the payback is just too long, and that is ev
Re:10 myths about fossil fuel divestment (Score:5, Interesting)
Having read that, a central core of the divestment theory amounts to "to bankrupt them morally."
That assumes the corporation, like most corporations, wasn't already morally bankrupt to begin with. I mean, US tobacco companies are still plodding along, how more morally bankrupt can you get than them? Even the fossil fuel companies can at least point out all the positives their products bring - fuel for your vehicles so you can move around, energy to heat and cool your homes, keep your computers running, etc...
So, I have to ask, if the values being divested are too small to affect their stock price, are being readily bought by others, and they've already given up on changing said companies by actually buying enough stock to get on the board, how is it supposed to be effective? What's the goal?
When you acknowledge that they already don't have 'morals' to bankrupt. That you're not changing the stock price, you're not depriving them of capital or credit, you're not changing anything.
Putting money into renewable energy helps the renewable energy fields, but is currently, on average, a riskier investment than the traditional companies, many of which have put a lot of money into renewables themselves.
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Like I said: "already given up on changing said companies by actually buying enough stock to get on the board..."
They were also, I think, a bit lazy about defining 'engagement' and the required scope.
it's a bit like a politician worrying about 1% of the vote, in a demographic that's not particularly for them anyways.
Which is why I defined 'enough stock to obtain representation on the board of directors'. Because then you do have a visible vote.
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Not really. Rather its a question of what people value on a relative scale. The value of money is only the common denominator.
When the climate begins to become too unstable to support agriculture, people's values will shift. With California now producing a major share of the fruits and vegetables produced in the US about to go dry (both in melt and groundwater, perhaps as yearly as 1 or 2 years), people's thinking will shift dramatically a lot sooner than most people realize. Midwesterners too are likel
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Not really.
Well, while perhaps insightful, I feel the need to point out that your post missed the point. I was zeroed in on 'divestment theory', specifically deconstructing the link mdsolar posted.
I do NOT object to increasing the funding of renewable energies. I DO think we're headed for trouble if we don't adjust. I just think that 'divestment' as a political statement is worthless. Making an educated guess that fossil fuel companies are going to be in trouble in the future is NOT a political statement while sti
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if the values being divested are too small to affect their stock price, are being readily bought by others, and they've already given up on changing said companies by actually buying enough stock to get on the board, how is it supposed to be effective? What's the goal?
This is the third time I've read this story and I still have the same confused face as the first time. How on earth would this improve anything? Only buying up fossil fuel production sites and then shutting them down is arguably doing anything, and even then it's only preservation and not environmentally beneficial.
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Oil use for paint, plastics, fertilizers, asphalt are all okay as far as atmospheric CO2 is concerned. The carbon is still bound up in non-CO2 form and is unlikely to be released as such.
It's only the burning of oil in engines that contributes to the CO2 buildup and we should be aiming at controlling that, not shutting oil down completely.
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But the amounts being divested are too small to flood the market and cut share prices, so they wonâ(TM)t be going cheap.
Any divestment of significant amounts would drop the price of the stocks in question. That it allegedly doesn't, indicates the divestment is insignificant.
As an aside, your link is a ridiculous propaganda piece. Some of the myths are obvious straw men such as the claim that selling oil stocks means the end of the world. Others like the example you mention above just don't make sense - supply and demand doesn't work that way.
Now, obviously if you selling something slowly without creating a pattern or s
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"But the amounts being divested are too small to flood the market and cut share prices, so they won’t be going cheap."
Clearly, you don't understand how stock markets work. The value of a stock is merely that of its last trade. Convince someone you have a stock that is going higher and you have a buyer. Convince them it is going lower and you have more sellers and fewer buyers. The number of shares traded don't matter, merely the last trade made.
As divestment picks up steam, not to mention all the
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Clearly, you don't understand how stock markets work. The value of a stock is merely that of its last trade. Convince someone you have a stock that is going higher and you have a buyer. Convince them it is going lower and you have more sellers and fewer buyers. The number of shares traded don't matter, merely the last trade made.
So much irony, you saying that... since you yourself don't understand how it works either...
It works on a bid/ask system, people post shares for sale and post bids to buy, the computers match them up at the highest price possible for the sellers and the lowest price possible for the buyers.
There are lots of shares for sale that don't sell due to the ask price, they are called limit orders. (and other complex order systems beyond that).
There are lots of shares that people want to buy (bid) that don't get bo
This might explain (Score:3)
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And this is different how? I'm glad somebody asked.
You see, those divestment campaigns only worked because there was no intrinsic need for anything coming from them. You cannot say that about Oil. This campaign is little more than a Greenie placing a bumper sticker on their SUV and driving around town to make sure everyone know they care about the environment. There is no natural, economical, or otherwise viable replacement for the fossil fuels and there will not be any time soon.
Now you can hold signs sayi
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How naively ignorant you are. It's almost cute if it wasn't so offensive.
First, not everywhere is your back yard. Not everywhere is only where "you" want to go. There are places not serviced by trains and that is more common than not in the US. For instance, it is more than 100 air miles to the nearest passenger train station in my area and travel by anything other than air to it would be closer to 150 miles. And as someone else pointed out, there are no long haul electric passenger trains in the US.
Also, i
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" no net difference"
This is a fallacy. There is no net difference in number of shares or the total population, but the value changes dramatically. Given the way our markets are structured, that value is based entirely on the last trade made. Stock investing is like the game of musical chairs in that its great if you have ownership of a chair and chairs are highly prized. However, if billions of people doesn't own a chair, then they tends to value chairs and the game differently, usually by going off and
Re:The economies of many nations? Try the sconomy (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow.. If using fucktarded repeatedly didn't show how fucking stupid you are, using USian as if it was an actual word most certainly does.
Here is a hint, the accepted term- even internationally is American. It is because the country is the United States of America and is the only country in north or south America that ends it's country name with America. Other countries have America in their official names, but they do not end it with America in neither their official language or the English version of the name so no other country has claim to the usage.
But it is not just the US who doesn't do anything about AGW concerning coal, natural gas, or oil (which it actually is, per capita GHG emissions in the US was 19.1 metric tons and in 2010, it was 17.6 which is a greater per capita drop than Canada, Japan, China, Italy, Australia, and only 2 tenths of a metric ton less than France). China, India (who both have surpassed the US in raw emissions), almost all third world countries, simply do not give a shit as much as you think they should either. In fact, Most of Europe who put arbitrary limitations on themselves ended up moving production over seas (off shoring) to eliminate accounting of carbon more than eliminating the carbon emissions itself. And Germany, they plateaued and seem to be increasing their emissions now, but they had the added benefit of combining two separate systems (East and West Germany) and doing away with redundant pollution sources with news more efficient sources which explains most of their reductions.
Here is another hint. Perhaps you wouldn't be afraid to post real posts and even use a real moniker if you actually paid attention and knew what was going on rather than jerk your knee so hard that you hit yourself in the head and can only speak from emotion.
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It's "American" because that's what Americans use. No-one else on the planet thinks it makes any sense, but we're stuck with it.
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Wow.. If using fucktarded repeatedly didn't show how fucking stupid you are, using USian as if it was an actual word most certainly does.
Here is a hint, the accepted term- even internationally is American. It is because the country is the United States of America and is the only country in north or south America that ends it's country name with America. Other countries have America in their official names, but they do not end it with America in neither their official language or the English version of the name so no other country has claim to the usage.
Would you prefer 'Yank'?
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Whatever word you want to use. We have people here in the USA who namecall that way. They use terms like 'Commie' to refer to those foreign people they don't like. Welcome to the same league, dude.
Funnily enough, the original 'USAian' is a term I use myself when wanting to distinguish between eg people from Canada and people from the USA (and I'm not the AC who used it above).
It just feels wrong to refer to 'people from the usa' as 'Americans' when there are Canadians present. It would be like referring to Germans as 'Europeans' in the same context as referring to French people as 'French'.
I don't think its got anything to do with the name of the country ending in 'America'; 'America' is the continen
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It only feels funny to you because you're a pedantic idiot. Canadians refer to Americans as Americans. I've never heard anyone have an issue with this except assholes on Slashdot.
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I'm not sure why you would need to distinguish like that. Canadians are not american, they are north american just like the mexicans even though there is the artificial central america designation for the area. Or do south americans somehow fail to qualify for your quirk in reasoning? America is not the continent, its North America. There is also a South America, and an invented Central America if you want to jump from continental designation to a useful geographic distinction.
What you essentially are doing
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I'm not sure why you would need to distinguish like that. Canadians are not american, they are north american just like the mexicans even though there is the artificial central america designation for the area. Or do south americans somehow fail to qualify for your quirk in reasoning? America is not the continent, its North America. There is also a South America, and an invented Central America if you want to jump from continental designation to a useful geographic distinction.
What you essentially are doing is trying say that heard looks like a flock so you will create a term like dogian to distinguish a pack of dogs. The problem is, theee are already valid names and terms that achieve the goal and it is pure ignorance when other terms are invented and substituted.
Canadians and people from the USA are in a matching category to French and people from Germany.
To refer to people from Germany as 'Europeans' while, in the same context, referring to people from France as 'French' makes no sense.
And actually, thinking about it, someone from Chile is also an American just as much as someone from Monaco is European.
Someone from Canada is Canadian. Someone from the USA is USAian. Get used to it, it'll become common usage soon enough.
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You bring up this European and french thing like it means something. It does not. America is not a continent. The Americas aee two separate continent denoted by the words North and South. Further, there are geographoc distinctions like central america. If you are attemting to address an entire continant or region, you need to use the names corisponding like north american or south american.
Its not the rest of the world's problem if you local language is so backwards or restricted to make that aware. You are
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I'm from the US, fairly well traveled, and unlike you I do not live in my mother's basement. I lived in Europe for awhile (Turkey, Germany, UK).. they call us Americans.. I've screwed a couple of women from Chile and Argentina down in South America.. they call us Americans.
The only, and I mean ONLY fucking place I've heard the idiotic term USian is here, so fuck your 'it'll be common usage soon enough' remark. You're just another term of SJW... (oh no mommy, it's the big bad cultural imperialists!)
FYI I've lived in 5 different countries on 4 different continents, first second and third world countries among them, and am about as far from my parents basement as its possible to get.
I'm hoping that 'Americans' will stop being used for people from the USA. Its just a dream I have. USAian is great suck it up, it'll become a meme real soon now.
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What do you mean "your insistance"? I gave corrected idiot using those terms improperly in the past too.
Heres the big point. You do not have to care, you just look moronic if you do not and use the term. Its sort of like going to a job interview and speaking ghetto slang while dropping the f-bomb in every other sentence. No one except the least educated will take you seriously and any idiot capable of counting to ten will be tacken more seriously.
But yes, i do not have the ability to control what you say or
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Mod you to 1000.
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You comment would make more sense if the UN owned stocks.
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They could save a lot more money by going home and phoning it in which is basically what it appears they do anyways. I mean they sat on their hands watching genocide, they largely didn't raise an eyebrow when Russia invaded the Ukraine. Sure, they have the charters and declarations and public statements like that sound grand, but even in their most recent peace keeping mission, they picked up and left when bullets started flying their way. I guess keeping the peace was not the real objective? And don't get
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", just some lucky guy(s) will get to buy them at a discounted price."
This, of course, assumes that fossil fuels stocks will continue to rise even as competition from alternative sources intensified, and as costs of production increase.
The problem for this scenario is that it is becoming less and less likely that this will happen, so if one gets out of old energy and into new energy, one's rate of return will be far greater over time, particular as the planetary global mean temperature moves from +2 deg C,
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One has to keep in mind that rate of planetary warming is accelerating with increased CO2 accumulation and the rate is exponential
While I agree that the earth is warming, the curve is not "exponential". It's fairly linear right now. Ultimately, temperature goes up with log(CO2), so a constant increase in temperature (estimated to be about +3 deg C) for every doubling of CO2.
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This, of course, assumes that fossil fuels stocks will continue to rise even as competition from alternative sources intensified, and as costs of production increase.
Yes, and you also assume that there is something actually called a "fossil fuel stock", which there isn't.
Exxon, BP, Shell, etc. have for years been investing in things other than oil, this isn't new for them.
50 years from now, it is quite possible BP really will stand for "beyond petroleum", which is what they already say in their marketing materials, even if it isn't quite true yet.
The value of BP stock may will be 20 times what it is today, even if all oil use stopped in 50 years. BP is a company, not a
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"net assets remain the same,"
The assets remain the same, but their value does not. In a way, as the value changes, so does how people regard the assets.
It all really comes down to a question of values. Those who think something is valuable will want more, particularly if they perceive that its value will rise in the future. The reverse is also true and those who think leaving the fossil fuels in the ground so humans have a planet that still supports human life will also value fossil fuels, but in an enti
Re:Oh look, another 'climate change' post... (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course it must be lie. It can't be getting hotter, which explains why all the world's glaciers are simultaneously melting faster than at any time previously recorded.
Makes one wonder, if its not getting hotter, why is all that ice melting? Why are sea levels rising? Surely those who believe that catastrophic man-made global warming is just a big lie, must have some explanation. One that has a shred of credibility to it. Of course, that would be asking too much.
The reality is global climate change is very much an energy issue and one that will fundamentally change how humans use and produce energy or it will end humanity for sure, primarily by making the environment they take for granted disappear before their eyes.
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The same way one sells a bad idea, although it is always a better idea to have a good idea rather than a bad one to sell.
The inconvenient truth is that burning fossil fuels is a bad idea, which if unchecked, will put an end to all ideas, at least those made by humans.
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Investors have found that its "unlucky" to be superstitious... in other words arbitrary reasoning increases the likelihood of negative outcomes.
The U.N. here is proposing the use of arbitrary reasoning ("oil is bad, mmmkay!") to make investment decisions. I recommend that you follow their advice. The sooner you are broke the bett
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You don't realise this, but instead of attacking the UN, your post merely said "Jacob Zimmermann doesn't know how diplomacy works". That's it. That's all you said. The UN elects these people to these panels/commissions in order to engage them in areas they need to improve on. By directly talking to people (instead of calling them pussies and shooting drones at them), improvements can be, and frequently are, made.
It would help you to not assume you know how these things work before publicly condemning th