Halliburton's One-Size-Fits-All Climate Change Solution
by Jacob Gordon, Nashville, TN on 05.12.06
For those of us who typically find corporate America’s response to global warming painfully flaccid, economically self-destructive, and morally reprehensible, Halliburton’s most recent contribution to climate change preparedness comes like a puff of fresh air. Presenting at the Catastrophic Loss Conference held at the posh Ritz-Carlton in Amelia Island, Florida, Halliburton representatives demonstrated three mockups of their innovative SurvivaBalls, protective suits with the ability to insulate members of the economic nerve center from the climatic and social disturbances resulting from an upset global ecosystem. Although appearing awkward at first, the benefits of the suits quickly become apparent. The devises, which Mr. Wolf described as “essentially a gated community for one," are ingeniously integrated with a host of advanced features like communications systems, nutrient gathering capacities, and onboard medical facilities. In addition to a “daunting defense infrastructure,” SurvivaBalls are able to gather energy from a plethora of sources, including wind, hydro, and even living animals.
Mr. Wolf and Dr. Northrop Goody of Halliburton’s Emergency Products Development Unit earnestly answered the insightful questions from conference attendees, who inquired about “how the device would fare against terrorism,” “whether the array of embedded technologies might make the unit too cumbersome,” and the issue of the unit's cost feasibility. It must also be asked if these suits might one day be affordable for the average family, or for members of the developing world, especially considering the cost of inflation. In addition to assuring attendees that these and other issues were actively being address, Mr. Wolf expressed Halliburton’s forward-thinking approach to climate change, viewing it as an opportunity pregnant with promise. "The SurvivaBall builds on Halliburton's reputation as a disaster and conflict industry innovator," said Wolf. "Just as the Black Plague led to the Renaissance and the Great Deluge gave Noah a monopoly of the animals, so tomorrow's catastrophes could well lead to good—and industry must be ready to seize that good." :: Halliburton (story from Hugg)
Uhhhh...I think this was a gag guys: http://washingtontimes.com/business/20060511-110534-5777r.htm
Of course it was! Aren't you a fan of straight-faced delivery? :)
That is fantastic. I love the "drawing power from an animal" section in the manual. I'm getting one of these for halloween.
Go YES MEN!
The big problem I see is that it looks like the ball wouldn't protect the guy's face from shotgun pellets. Also, it doesn't look big enough for my Hummer to fit inside.
"ball wouldn't protect from shotgun pellets"
HAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!
Snarky posts sans substance like this one decrease the usefulness of this site. I hope to see less of them in the future.
I definitely like this article.
I have to admit that for a minute (or two) I was completely disgusted, but then it began to dawn on me that it was a spoof.
Great job.
imagine the possibilties
This post is seriously dangerous. I laughed so hard at an unexpected time that it made me aspirate on my apple juice and rice powder drink. Totally worth it though. I agree that we don't want to clog Treehugger with snarkicism, but I just can't handle reading about things like baby seals drowning because of global warming if I don't get a little comic relief once in a while.
I'm worried to see good companies like Halliburton doing their best to help the world out when it comes to global warming preparedness when global warming is a myth. Over the past millenia the world has gone through many ice ages and warm periods. This is a warm period that will lead to an small ice age. Anyone ever read about the 1300 -1500's? Do a little research and put down your New York Times and get with the real world.
Peace and Love
Jeff, you seem to want to take the scientific approach to things, right? Look at the evidence, etc? I suggest that you go to www.realclimate.org, a website where climate scientists hang out.. Lets see what they have to say about your conclusions.
MGR and Jeff, them are fighting words.
it seems to me like neither side wants to listen to the other. the scientists that say this is just part of the earth warming and cooling won't hear the opposite side. and those of us who believe in global warming (though im not exactly sure where i stand) won't hear the opposite. we both have our credible scientists to support what we believe.
Its so darn hard to be objective when it comes to this and i feel like we could care a bit more about what the other side thinks. i mean, why the heck do we have sides? we live on the same earth, we all want it to survive (well, most of us) but we all also want to not buy into false theories (well, some people get a high off of those).
In conclusion; hear what the other person has to say.
"we both have our credible scientists to support what we believe."
Except that one side is massively more credible than the other: see this.
"That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9).
The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position."
The people who claim that global warming is a "myth" seem not to publish their "research" in peer reviewed scientific papers. Hmm. I wonder why that is. Could it be because they are from think tanks paid by the industries making billions? Could it be because they only use parts of the evidence to make it seem one way and fool the non-scientific public? Hmm..
Sure some scientists raise doubts about some parts of some theories, but that's normal for all research dealing with vastly complex systems; but the overall theory, the general foundation of it all? Not really AFAIK.
MGR - I do not dispute the fact that because we have billions of people using natural resources that the Earth might experience a warming, but how do you explain the small ice age experienced from the 1200's to the early 1800's? Big Oil? Exploration in Alaska? The Middle East? Forgive me, but I'm not even sure we had cars and oil refineries back then.
Basic logic:
You say: A duck has wings, a fly a wings, so a fly is a duck.
It's not because the Earth cooled or warmed in the past that the current rapid warming is caused by the same reasons; the way to know what causes it is to study it, look at the evidence, run models, combine scientific knowledge from different domains (we learned about the greenhouse effect by looking at other planets; Mars and Venus, for example), etc. The people doing that all day long are climate scientists, they form quite a large community all around the world, they share information and discoveries, and use the scientific method (which is transparent and anybody can look at their methodology). They collectively know more than anyone about the Earth's climate. More than me, more than you.
Their consensus (which has been verified by looking at almost a thousand peer reviewed papers in peer reviewed scientific journals) is that anthropic greenhouse gases are causing global warming.
I know that after you've learned that the climate changes on a geological time-scale (that it was different in the past on a cyclical basis) that it seems like common sense to think that we're just in a normal warming cycle, but common sense is also what told us the Earth was flat. Sometimes you need more data and to dig deeper; it's a really common trait in people not to do that, and that's why the scientific method is so rigorous and has to be peer reviewed.. And it's exactly with this misleading "common sense" that special interests groups are (by giving people partial/cherry picked information and nice interviews with their "scientists" that do more TV interview and Reader's Digest articles than they do actual lab work) trying to create confusion on the issue and ensure inaction (and profits for them) for a while.
Unfortunately, it has worked pretty well in the US, probably because of the strong anti-intellectual culture in the mainstream (show anyone a one-hour special about climate on FOX and they think they know better than the scientific community).
MGR - What should we do about the problem of global warming. Even if the U.S. stops it's use of fossil fuels we still have growing economies like China and India who will keep polluting the environment. I'm going to do my part and buy the newest Pearl Jam album. Let me know what else I can do.
The same thinking applies to individuals and countries (it's just different scales):
We must not think "oh well, my neighbor probably won't do enough, so I shouldn't do anything either".
First, start with yourself. Reduce your carbon footprint, be more efficient, etc. Then, after you lead by example, you can start to spread the word, pressure politicians, write letters to newspapers, mention it on your website, talk to children about it, stay informed and answer questions about it when people mention the subject, write essays, donate to NGOs, whatever. Just be part of the movement that wants change and help it gain velocity and mass so that it reaches a tipping point as soon as possible.
It's strange, because people in the US are going: "Yeah, but even if we do something, China isn't!" and in China they must think "Oh well, the US isn't even part of it and they are the biggest polluter...".
Just work on what you can work and always keep an eye open for opportunities to do more and make things better. It doesn't have to be hard, but it has to be smart because what we need is brains right now..
As for China and India, AFAIK they will be part of the next phase of Kyoto, and they are quite aware of the problems (over 50 million of their citizens are in areas that could be flooded by global warming). They can't turn around on a dime, but I doubt they'll have 150 years of dirty development like the US had...
The worse approach is just to burry your head in the sand and hope it doesn't exist.
I'm going to do my part and buy the newest Pearl Jam album.
What ever gave you the impression that trolling and cynicism were cool? Don't you have something better to do with your life than behave like this?
enough the the climate debate.
As i was reading the manual i thought, my god, next we will put antelopes in egg shaped cells full of gooey stuff and suck their brain electricity to power our cities, and we would go around in big machines and then one day an antelope would fight back and then a war would start and eventually we would find the hidden antelope city only to stop fighting the antelopes because the DEER are the real problem, then the antelope would fight the deer and we would let the antelope go and a little indian antelope would make the sun rise again.
then i realised it was all a lie and i cried and cried.
"Unfortunately, it has worked pretty well in the US, probably because of the strong anti-intellectual culture in the mainstream (show anyone a one-hour special about climate on FOX and they think they know better than the scientific community)."
The irony of the "information age" is that we now have so many "experts" out there that you can easily find one that will tell you whatever you want to hear. We may have an anti-intellectual culture, but even highly intelligent people often seek the "truth" that is the most convienient for them. Some of the misunderstanding about global warming is certainly due to ignorance and manipulation by the powers that be, but I think a lot of it is also due to the fact that we don't want to own up to the fact that the lifestyle choices we've made have had a devastating effect on the planet. If we did that, we'd actually have to change. The easier way to dispel our cognitive dissonance is pretend there's no problem, and if there is one, that we didn't cause it, and if we did cause it, that there's nothing we can do about it.
I don't intend this as a criticism -- just an observation.
Stay strong, MGR, stay strong. Don't let the little trolls get you down.
I don't think there were many drowning polar bears and walrus pups from 1200-1500. I don't think the glaciers in Europe and North America were receding by the decade. And I don't recall ever hearing that the snow cap on Mt. Fuji was ever receding to complete dissappearance back then either.
ProgGrrl - Please don't resort to name calling. Is anyone with a different point of view than you always a "little troll"?
Anonymous - Because of the strong emotional attachment that many green anti-intellectuals have, they been blinded by their party line. I'm sorry many of them only know what Anderson Cooper and CNN have to say on the subject. There are many studies and surveys conducted that show that many of the leading climatologists believe that this is a natural Earth phenomenon and the greenhouse gases that occur from our activities are but a small percentage of the total greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere through natural causes. All I am doing is basing my ideas on studies I have read. Why am I considered an anti-intellectual just because I believe the "majority" of the scientists that disagree with you? It's a shame that the Information Age has allowed so many distorted facts to be put on the web and considered to be true.
I like a good debate, though this might not be the right place for it.
I hope, however, that we all accept that global warming is a fact brought on mostly by increases in the atmospheric conentration of CO2 (among other things) and that any "debate" that still lingers has to do with its cause, not whether or not it's "real".
If you don't believe that, then you've just got your head in the sand, end of story.
On the other hand, I (along with most people who have looked at this in any depth) see an extremely compelling corellation between the rise of the industrial/combustive era and a dramatic increase in the concentration of greenhouse gasses. This increase is above and beyond anything that has been seen in the historic cycles, and that's what's worrying.
Those who claim that scientists are biased about it (seeking funds perhaps) are kidding themselves because if scientists were trying to defraud anyone then they would not agree, rather, they would create uncertainty and ask for more "studies".
Even if the whole thing were paranoia (which it's not), there are so many benefits to taking a proactive stance against emissions - lower asthma, less smog, higher efficieny, more profitable companies, restorative industrial processes - that we'd be idiots not to pursure them.
The future is green my man. Get on board!
Jeff: I respect your position and do not consider you an anti-intellectual. I also do not agree with name calling or ad hominem attacks of any kind and do not think that these things will help the environmental movement.
It's the Jim/Nothalo troll back in yet another new guise. Leave the poor thing be.
You guys are all weird. I'm just trying to give Halliburton its due. jeez
for all those climate skeptics, two words:
"precautionary principle"
look it up.
yeah that debate totally took the spotlight from my awesome antelope story.
bunch of nuffies