The thought here is 'look at how things break to understand the weaknesses' and 'plan accordingly'.

There is a technique in materials science called 'fracture analysis'. This discipline is used to quantify those characteristics in a material which contribute to its 'fragility' or 'durability' under stress. One of the measures is 'shear' or how much stress a rod can handle before it fails catastrophicly and when it does fail, how it fails and why.

I would like to introduce a real world 'shear test' underway at this time. Consider the current North Eastern USA oil products supply problems as this stress test. The prices and availability of product are the measuring gauges. They measure the amount of financial stress occuring in the test subject. In this case the test subject is the oil supply lines.

In one week we went from 'everything is fine' (and $1.10 fuel oil prices) to 'no one knows why this is happening' (and $1.90 fuel oil prices). And this week looks like a continuation of pattern.

In Portland, Maine an 11 million gallon storage tank (kero) sits EMPTY. Slowly all privately owned 'storage' will be EMPTY. People are switching to alternate fuels if they can (wood). This is not 'opportunism' is it 'don't got no'.

Today the USA imports 53% of its oil product needs from other nations. Our economy, running at full tilt, will in fact WILT if we donpt have that oil. Many things could cause an oil shortage and/or higher prices, not just Y2K bugs.

The question you might ask yourself is "have I prepared to live in a world different from the one I have grown accustomed too over these past few years"? One assumption we make is 'we will always have enough energy (and the right kinds).

Home Work Assignment:

List all the raw materials we import which account for 50% or more of our current need. List the industries and products each of these materials is used to make.

Extra Credit:

Discourse on the effect of shortages or price increases on the SERVICE ECONOMY which makes up 2/3rds of the US GDP. (hint - how higher oil prices will effect internal tourism and therefore bancrupcy rates in areas like Florida or Arizona).

-- ..- (dit@dot.dash), January 24, 2000

Answers

I think we should have a thread called 'World in Denial' but I guess it's too early for that since none of the 'glitches' are y2k related!

I'll be doing my homework tonight, not because I expect to get anything better than a C-, but because the exercise will make me more aware of specifics. And...I can't wait to look over my shoulder to see what the A students say!

Crow

PS. how does everybody get those fancy email addresses?

-- Eating Crow (suzan@monad.net), January 24, 2000.

A quick search on "strategic metals" yields numerous hits. For example:

Chromium 100% imported. Strontium. Titanium Managanese. Cobalt. Niobium. Zirconium.

Many of these are alloying agents for speciality steels used in aerospace, defense, construction, transportation.

-- Bill P (porterwn@one.net), January 24, 2000.

Strategic Metals

Strategic Metals That the U.S. Imports Link: http://www.y2kinvestor.com/whereworld.htm Comment: The U.S. imports 100% of the following strategic metals.

This is from Tony Keyes' Y2K INVESTOR site.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

ARSENIC (WOOD PRESERVATIVES, GLASS MFG, AGRICULTURAL, CHEMICALS)

BAUXITE & ALUMINA (ALUMINUM DROD, ABRASIVES, CHEMICALS PROPANTS, REFRACTRIES)

COLUMBIUM (STEELMAKING, SUPERALLOYS)

GRAPHITE (REFRACTORIES, BRAKE LINNINGS, LUBRICANTS, FOUNDRY DRESSINGS)

MANGANESE (STEELMAKING)

MICA (ELECTRONICS & ELECTRICAL EQUIP)

STRONTIUM (TELEVISION PICTURE TUBES, FERRITE MAGNETS, PYROTECHNICS)

THALLIUM (SUPERCONDUCTOR MATERIALS, ELECTRONICS, ALLOYS, GLASS)

THORIUM (CERAMICS, CARBON ARC LAMPS, ALLOYS, WELDING ELECTRODES)

FLOURSPAR (HYDROFOURIC ACID, ALUMINUM FLORIDE, STEELMAKING)

80% dependence:

COBALT, TIN, TUNGSTEN, TANTALUM, CHROMIUM

-- Bill P (porterwn@one.net), January 24, 2000.

Very good, class. Now for 2 times extra credit, where do these materials come from (what nations). Extrapolate political considerations...

(***BTW you forgot Platinum and Paladium, both used as catalysts for petroleum refinement and other chemical processes. auto emissions control equipment, etc. Russia provides 80% of world platinum production and South Africa about 8%.***)

-- ..- (dit@dot.dash), January 24, 2000.

You all might want to go on a summer vacation to Williamsburg sometime, and see how life could be without everything we take for granted. A great spot for vacationing anyway. Really thoughtful post, Mr. Morse Code

-- lyn (lynhettler@hotmail.com), January 24, 2000.

Yes - the source countries. While making that list, one might note whether the US/UN or NATO has been involved in a "peace keeping" or "humanitarian" action there in the past 50 years.

One might also note whether the US has deposits of these resources and where. One might make further note if these deposits have been "protected" from development by being declared a "national landmark," such as the Grand Escalante, or by radical environmental laws prohibiting development.

Interesting, eh?

-- eyes open (open@your.eyes), January 24, 2000.

grand escalante has COAL underneath it

a friend who worked on y2k repairs told me in 1998 that while I should prepare for y2k, what I REALLY should prepare for is what we have done to the biosphere

climate change is here and intensifying

I'm glad that the coal in grand escalante is legally protected (from now) from being burned and further fouling up the atmosphere.

"if we could harness the power of the sun, it would light every light and turn every wheel we would ever need" -- bell telephone ad, circa 1950

-- windandsolar (mark@windandsolar.com), January 24, 2000.

Thank you, Lyn. I try to cntribute a little something. Willimasburg is nice. If we went there in a few years (conversion from current to then future way of living) I'm afraid it would be unpleasant. ut you are right, people do live even today, very decent lives with alot less than what we use today.

-- ..- (dit@dot.dash), January 24, 2000.

Good points, Eyes-Open. Its a web out there. The seventies were about dealing openly with our issues (nationally), but people got tired of it and instead agreed to pretend that these issues did not exist (but our elected .gov managed them in the background none the less). We have become much more dependent on the outside world since then and also much more vulnerable. I'm afraid that the people in this country both young and old would not have a problem with international 'resource allocation' wars compared with people in the 1960's (remember slogans about Vietnam being about protecting Exxon?).

Its all still there. Unfortunately we are more wed to it all now than ever before. I'm also afraid that many, many of our young people will die in future ungodly wars fought to 'protect our way of life', when the only thing we had to do as a nation was change our way of life...we could have started that twenty years ago and been done with the transition now. But we put our heads in the sand.

-- ..- (dit@dot.dash), January 24, 2000.

Re climate change:

This is excerpted from a letter I addressed to my Senators a few years back -

It is a recognized fact within the scientific community that the theory of "Global Warming" is controversial and challengeable under respected and credible science. In 1992, more than 500 respected scientists made the Heidelberg Appeal to urge diplomats to reconsider international agreements made on the basis of this questionable theory. Today that number has grown to more than 4,000 mainstream scientist signatories, including 70 Nobel Prize Winners, from throughout the international community. Even a recent Gallop poll of eminent North American climatologists showed that 83% of them were in disagreement with the global warming theory.

Much of the theory of Global Warming is predicated upon the use of computer modeling. Such models are crude management tools subject to the variability of such fundamental inputs as data collection protocols, calibration of instruments, representative sampling and appropriateness of measurement. Environmental modeling, or modeling of dynamic systems over a period of time sufficient to reflect trend in climatic change, is only in an infantile stage. The model, itself, is dependent upon the identification of all variables, scientific knowledge of their interaction and cumulative effect. Our technological capacity can accommodate consideration of only two of the 14 components that are currently speculated to make up the climatic system. Even a good model fails to draw any credible relationship between man-made activities and trend.

A peer review panel critique by Dr. Vincent Gray of Climate Change 1995; The Science of Climate Change, released by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) identifies several glaring flaws in the science upon which the report is based:

(1) Exaggeration of the rate of CO2 change assumed in the models caused by selecting only two measurement sites rather than global mean figures supplied by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Climate Monitoring and Diagnostics Laboratory; (2) Blatant misrepresentation of the growth rate of atmospheric methane, ignoring the actual decline in average growth rate from 1983-1994, and assuming a steady increase projected into the future; (3) Failure to validate the model against actual current and past temperatures - a basic step that must be made before any model can be accepted as a credible tool; and (4) Unrealistically emissions scenarios - IS92a, b, c, d, e and f, revealing exaggerated assumptions regarding greenhouse gases, energy usage, economic and population growth between 1990 and 2001.

As technology and research in the area of climatic change becomes more refined, our understanding of the issue and it's potential impact has changed. For instance, in 1990, the IPCC predicted that without CO2 emission controls, the average global temperature would increase 3.3 degrees C between 1990-2100. In 1992, this figure was revised to 2.8 degrees C; and in 1995, was revised down to 2 degrees C - 1 degree with consideration of the cooling effect of aerosols.

In contrast, data from United States satellite and weather balloon measurements from 1979 to date indicate that the Earth is cooling by .037 C per decade.

The scientific community is still in an exploratory phase regarding our understanding of climatic changes and cycles. Recently, a prominent member of the climatic research community, V. Ramanathan of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, stated about current efforts to reliably predict trends in climatic change over the next century; "I used to think of clouds as the Gordian knot of the problem. Now I think it is aerosols. We are arguing about everything."

-- marsh (siskfarm@snowcrest.net), January 24, 2000.

Yes, the Grand Escalante involved coal - a very very pure burning coal. One that I would think environmentalists would be interested in developing over other sources.

Here is an excerpt from a WorldNet Daily article: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_exnews/19981123_xex_nail_clinton. shtml

"...Zeifman raises another little-understood scandal first reported by Land Rights Letter in 1996 by Sarah Foster, now a staff writer for WorldNetDaily. This was the executive order signed by President Clinton on Sept. 16, 1996 -- six weeks before the presidential election -- designating as "wilderness" some 1.7 million acres of federal land in southwest Utah.

"By creating the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument as a wilderness area, Clinton effectively placed the area off-limits to mining, logging, road building, and any other development. This land contains one of the only known large deposits of clean-burning coal in the world -- coal so low in sulfur and other pollutants it meets the strict environmental standards established during the Clinton administration by the Environmental Protection Agency. The New York Times reported that the deposits could be worth over $1 trillion.

"The second-largest deposit of such coal in the world is in Indonesia, where development has been under way for several years.

"Zeifman suggests there is a prima facie case for bribery -- once again by Indonesia's billionaire Riady family. The Riadys, who are suspected of spying for the Chinese government and are closely connected with Beijing (the Riadys are native Chinese, not Indonesian), stand to benefit big-time from Clinton's executive order. China will be a major market for this clean-burning coal.

"With a stroke of his pen he wiped out the only significant competition to Indonesian coal interests in the world market," Sarah Foster noted in 1996.

"Zeifman adds: "A few weeks after the signing of the executive order, a person inexplicably identified as an unemployed gardener gave the Clinton campaign $400,000. It was not until after the president's re-election that the Democratic National Committee promised to refund the money -- after it was revealed it had come from Arief Wiriadmata and his wife, Soraya, whose father is an executive of the Riady's Lippo Group."

-- eyes open (open@your.eyes), January 24, 2000.

I, for one, have definitely been preparing to live in a world somewhat different that the recent few years...

* Energy will no doubt become more expensive (and electricity here is already the most expensive in the USA...).

* The stock market is becoming increasingly volitile.

* Distribution channels are changing...

* Many natural resources are being depleted (look at sustainable yields from commercial fishing).

* Weather appears to be changing...not necessarily for the better.

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), January 24, 2000.