Ken SchreinerSen. Hatch Wrong Again: Crandall Canyon Is Not a “Natural Disaster”
Why are we blaming Nature for the totally HUMAN-caused suffering and death at the Crandall Canyon mine? First Robert Murray. Now, Orrin “Sticking my Foot in My” Hatch refers to the botched mop-up-turned-rescue-turned-chaos-and-death operation as a “natural disaster.”
It wasn’t an earthquake. The “bumps” and shifting were caused by the mining of the mountain, not the mountain. The mine operator was engaging in a risky procedure. What’s natural about that?
People are to blame, Orrin. People, people, people, people, people, people, people, people, people.
August 17th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
people is right, Ken.
August 17th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Well Ken, in not attributing it to “nature” you have removed humans from the reality that what we do is no doubt a natural progression. It involves what you, or anyone, perceives to be our “purpose”.
If, as I believe, that humans have evolved to become “entropy amplification devices”, then the undermining of the mountain, the burning of coal(which increases global warming, which in turn speeds up ALL chemical reactions) is absolutely a natural event. The law of entropy(2nd law of thermodynamics, all energy tends towards lower energy states and higher states of disdorder) has been preserved, and we humans, as nuts as it all looks, are the Guardians of that Law.
Even you, from the thermal calories of the morning shower, to the gravity of the first mornings flush
Is being born a natural event in your view? How so, if the means by which infant survival occurs, is deemed by you as “unnatural”? The house, the heat, the furrowed field, the drugs, the domestic animals, the gas, oil, THE COAL, that heated the hospital, fed your Mom…how is anything we do “natural” or is it all “natural”? Since we do it, and it happens, I would have determine in a world in which yin and yang struggle, that all is natural, just not necessarily “pleasant”.
Even you from the thermal calories of the morning shower, to the energy in the gravity of the days first flush, it is what we do, it is what we ARE!
To conserve without spending up more energy is to die off. We can be efficient, but if we stop transferring masses of energy by our simply living, we will be made extinct from this place. We have shredded since we can remember, it is part of what we are. If we change this impetus we will have to live a more ethereal life, because even as a “progressive” your needs add up to something burning, somewhere. Keep moving energy down the entropy chain, and evolution will allow us to stay. Life is just a variation of the energy, it is we that have given it perhaps more than it actually materially contains…as after all, it is ALL WE REALLY HAVE!
August 17th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
I believe what humans are engaged in now is not a “natural progression.” It is a psycho-spiritual, abstract progression coming from the Crusades, the Age of Enlightenment and subsequent technological experimentation during which humans anointed themselves Masters of the Universe. We have made up our own rules and feel as if we are even above those. We have deemed ourselves separate from Nature. The parabolic argument you’ve developed here is the rationale for the problem, not an analysis and certainly not a solution.
August 17th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
So you say. However it is happening, and without external influence. Therefore I submit that as perverse as it may appear, it is indeed something that we may be intended for. How do you separate the thoughts that have led to motivation from the reality itself Ken? I cannot do this, it is quite a trick.
Humanity is a package deal, the ideas that got us to the ball, will carry us drunk home, or not. Cup a coffee in between might do wonders. Who spiked the punch?
Your statement that our current path is not a “natural progression” is inherently false from my point of view. This was demonstrated to me in the 10th grade biology.
Our project was to sex and place a pair of fruit flies into a medicine prescription jar, complete with food and tiny holes for oxygen. There in we watched the population grow. Mr. Hansen our prof, must have had a flair for theatrics as we left our project unattended for the duration of the 5 days we were off for Thanksgiving holiday. Well upon return was a most disgusting collection of dead and dying fruit flies and a completely corrupted environ, devoid of food, and toxified was the prescription bottle. Was this natural? It is indeed the fate of a creature that cannot leave its own wastes behind, and is trapped in a confined space, without ability to alter conditions.
This can be said of humans, for I do not see the changes coming quickly enough. In fact portions of our prescription bottle cannot sustain human life with success already, and really, before we dreamed up technology, never could.
So Ken, tell me, how is the problem, that is humanity in its essence, to be solved?
Who says its a problem? I am not saying one way or the other, it is happening though. I know if wild creatures hold any sentience, they can only hope for our demise, our end, even if ends theirs, will allow some other, perhaps less impactful life form to become dominant. Like the Earth has consistently done after extinction events.
I’m certain that a few of the fruit flies may have felt something bad coming on, but their fate was their fate. It is an amusement to me that with all the fuck ups humans have perpetrated, we still somehow think that we have the ability to master our path. It is however something to strive for, and at least a nice sentiment. Expect resistance, as always.
Is it impossible for a person of the Enlightenment to believe in the old world acceptance, that human life is deterministic, at least at the level of physics and chemistry, and we may be living for a purpose, that we in no way “desire” that we in no way control? Use divorce, alimony, and what is a man for? as your guide.
August 17th, 2007 at 9:41 pm
I agree, people are to blame for this disaster. The people who are to blame are those who are keeping us from using better and cleaner methods of producing electricity such as nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is the cleanest and safest form of energy production there is. Fear and NIMBYism is to blame for the United States not taking advantage of the most prevalent and renewable resource in the universe, the atom. It has been said that if the electric chair was invented before the light bulb we would all fear electricity. Nuclear Energy should be an environmentalists number one choice for electricity because it causes zero pollution, and is extremely safe except maybe in the hands of Soviet communists. France, who likes to bill itself as an environmentally friendly country, is a world leader in nuclear energy. The United States problem is we are so paranoid about it that we can’t even agree where to store nuclear waste. Waste that could be reprocessed into new rods but again we are too afraid and paranoid to do that as well.
Imagine No burning coal, no hydroelectric dams, no unsightly wind farms for Ted Kennedy to complain about. Just safe and abundant nuclear energy. It’s easy if you try.
There is no reason having people thousands of feet underground digging coal when there is nuclear energy available that could meet the needs of all Americans. Yes people are to blame for this coal mine disaster. Hopefully, one of those people who are to blame isn’t the person looking back at you in the mirror.
August 17th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
Hell, they lose half a dozen miners a day in china. Since they are our most favored nation trading partner it is important that we not make them look bad as we attempt to emulate their roaring economy.
Hence we need our own mine disasters to take the pressure off our good friend and noble patron the Communist Peoples Republic of china. After all our own economy would be nowhere without their slave labor economy, so we too must hire our own slaves to emulate their success”, and justify the exploitation of their people, and our own, or any hapless illegal alien that happens along, as “everybody does it. That makes it OK. You Reading me America?
Doesn’t it make you wonder that if murray didn’t hire a translator for the victims Latino families.., are we now to believe that the Latinos down in the mine may also be unable to speak English? Does it not strike a person as asinine to bring people you cannot communicate with properly down deep into a FUCKING MINESHAFT?!!
Go nuclear, OK, as long as we can store any unprocessed waste in Utah. The cost of nuke power per kilowatt in France is about what it costs here. 7 cents a kw. However, they have their infrastructure, reprocessing facilities built and paid for. We do not. Got 1/2 a trillion for Iraq boondoggle that was voted for by an overwhelming bi-partisan majority, but nuclear power? Bupkiss baby. Too late folks, were already too dumb as a population to safely use nuclear power, we can’t even run and regulate a simple coal mine correctly. Imagine murray the nuclear power plant manager…
August 18th, 2007 at 6:49 am
Undercut any structure and sooner or later it will collapse. That’s the Murray operation and I dare say many others.
Glenn, as for the essense of humanity being entrophy…that about half says it. Our ‘godliness’ suggests there’s a polar opposite out there somewhere. Just don’t try to find it. It will ellude you.
Ken, the promise of Nuclear energy?, ignoring the downside won’t cause it to simply go away.
You ought to know that.
Good luck.
August 18th, 2007 at 6:52 am
Ken: Despite my treehugger tendencies, I believe nuclear power is an answer, maybe not everywhere but especially in Utah. It’s not a popular position among many greenies but nuclear makes more sense than coal.
Glenn: Man, I thought I wrote abstractly. On your comments: things are different now than the past zillion years. Humans can destroy the entire planet and there’s no escape. I get the tragedy of the commons and the dead fruit flies. If life a existential death march, why bother chatting about it now?
However, I disagree with your statement “I do not see the changes coming quickly enough.” I make them every day. That’s where it starts.
August 19th, 2007 at 10:50 am
Things are no different now as then Ken, we are just an added element in the destruction of the planet, and smaller than an asteroid hit by far. “Godliness” Cav is just a psychological affectation to further enhance and provide justification as humans are chosen, and the divine has given us this world to rule over.
It is a psycho template to enhance entropy. Faith based reasoning leads to exclusion and conflict resulting in wars, destruction and BURNING!! Usually in these conflicts the most wasteful and stupid, and profligate invaribly become the victors. Fits with entropy. Any good belief does in god does, is to instill those with it, to breed, breed, breed…resulting in more entropy amplification devices.
Like Mickey Avalon says, white rapper Jew boy from LA. “It’s like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder, that god must be one sick mutthafucka.”
Ken, we chat as mental masturbation. Although, in order to understand what we must do, it would first be advisable to determine with all honesty what the fuck we are FOR! There is a comet or asteroid waiting to obliterate life on earth, and this has been the case since this rock coalesced.
Have you not considered that given the evidence of our destructive tendencies that indeed we may have been evolved in the same concept that rotifers have been? To sweep away much of the old to bring on the new, remove and transform the detritus. The physics and chemistry of this have no value judgments or morality. Only we do.
Is it impossible for you to consider that mans path despite all the “thinking”, is no different than a terminating asteroid? You can only disagree if you are a believer than man is special. See, I don’t think that.
August 19th, 2007 at 10:52 am
All any good belief in god does…
August 19th, 2007 at 10:59 am
Ken the changes you have made have been borne on 35,000 dollars of manufactured technology. Swap on for another means of power, very good. What is the rest of the world to do that do not have these resources? If serious, and you have another 35k, give your system to someone, or pay to build one for someone. Since this legacy seems to be the most important thing that matters for us to survive from what I read from you, what are you waiting for?
Either way Ken, the march of energy is only something we swim in, not control. What we do control is like the water trapped in your swimsuit whilst swimming in the ocean. I don’t worry about things, have my own pared down life, complete with solar. What is to come pass, shall. See? Religion!!
August 19th, 2007 at 11:33 am
I appreciate your existential argument. I also understand you looking out for only yourself. But the “rugged individualist” combined with the “no one here gets out alive” attitude is the very thing the coal industry and other self-serving corporations and governments look for to support destroying the quality of life for those less fortunate- most people. If “pursuit of happiness” is what life is all about, as the founders of America believed, then many citizens of our great land are being denied this inalienable right by greedy corporate thieves, disinterested bureaucrats and those- well- looking out only for themselves. Solar and other alternative sources not only need to be made affordable for all. They need to be mandated in new construction. Heck, new homes are already unafforable to most Americans. We should at least make them environmentally neutral.
August 19th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
There he goes again, (where have I heard that phrase before), Orrin Hatch telling another BIG whopper in defense of BIG business.
August 20th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Jeffersons’ writings says you can pursue happiness, it is your inalienable right, thogh he never said anything about getting it.
If you are unhappy that greedy corporatists are ruining peoples chance of happiness, there are means to end this. You can talk, 1st amendment, enforce exiting laws under Constitution for those that have broken the law, or you can arm to topple a corrupt, tyrannical government, 2nd amendment. If you unable to accept that responsibility, it falls to the criminal to do as they please. The onus is on those that want something done. As we are often told as children, no one is going to do it for you. You must do it yourself.
I am not just looking out for myself. I have built my own little solar system years ago. I simply am not convinced as you are as to the source of our problems, or the means to “fix” them.
You wish to mandate how homes are built, start with how government buildings are built. Move on from there.
YW:I also understand you looking out for only yourself. But the “rugged individualist†combined with the “no one here gets out alive†attitude is the very thing the coal industry and other self-serving corporations and governments look for to support destroying the quality of life for those less fortunate- most people. This is untrue, they may look for that assistance, but more often it is volunteered. People want cheap power with no infrastructure costs up front that are assigned specifically to them. So far our society doesn’t have much of a clue or intention of giving it to them, by lower pollution means.
So Ken, have any ideas what people are for yet? Can you deny the reality of entropy as it applies to our lives? Why can Europeans move forward with this and we cannot? I have an answer to this, but it would be interesting to hear what you think.
August 20th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
Americans are immature compared to Europeans as a civilization. They’ve fought all the ridiculous wars and realized that the next one will be the last one. Why would they even consider a “union” if they didn’t think this was their last chance at survival (either being taken over by the Russians, Chinese or Americans)? Like technology, however, we can mature faster based on our knowledge of the past. If we choose not to, then we deserve our fate. As you acknowledge.
August 22nd, 2007 at 10:15 am
Perhaps fate and the program for what we were seemingly evolved for, are the same thing.
What would be the implications of humans obtaining limitless non polluting power? How if we are irresponsible with a finite means of our survival, what would entropy propel us to if we could be the ultimate entropy amplification device? My feeling is that the issue isn’t in the way the current majority thinks, it is the species.
So what Ken do you think people are for? Once we can all agree on that, we can make decisions that reflect what that is. That there a multiplicity of current beliefs on what we are here for is obvious. Somebody has to win, no? Currently our military capacity has directed to a very great deal, that the world live like we do, because anyway who disagrees with this is beset upon by us.
The warriors are the “winners”. They serve a greater entropy, and under our war regime, you can burn fuel with as much abandon as you like, providing you have the money.