10 Jun 2001 #0124.html

Global Warming

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Dear Paul and Kate, Melanie and Jared, Bridget and Justin, Sara, Ben and Sarah, Heather, Audrey, Rachel, and Matt via hardcopy,

cc: file, Tony Hafen, Pauline Nelson via mail, Sara and Des Penny, Claude and Katherine Warner, Lloyd and Luana Warner, Diane Cluff, Maxine Shirts via mail.

Welcome to "Thoughtlets." This is a weekly review of an idea, belief, thought, or words that will hopefully be of some benefit to you, my children, with an electronic copy to on-line extended family members. Any of you can ask me not to clutter your mail box at any time.

"Busy week, with somewhat more to say than the last two weeks. For those not here who have seen the news, global warming has created some flooding problems in Houston. However, we have no problems in Katy from the flooding. Sara, as I recall you come home this week, and it will be interesting to hear what, if anything, there was about Houston's flooding issues in the French news. I miss you, and sure look forward to seeing you again. My prayers have been with you, and I hope everything has gone wonderfully for you.

Last week I wrote the Thoughtlet on Saturday night, and sent it out Sunday morning before church. It was Fast & Testimony Meeting, and I was pleasently suprised by Tana Holmes comments. She had a long list of all of those who have helped her family and have been involved in Bryant's decision to be baptized a couple of weeks ago (0120.html). About the third family she listed was `The Nelson's, who have been there forever. Roice was our Home Teacher for several years, and when Bryant's Mother died, Andrea brought in a nice meal (../0050.html).' It is not very often one get's thanked for being a Home Teacher, and it seems to me like it was 15 years ago when I home taught them with Aaron Boyce and maybe with Roice. I guess, like global warming, all things are acknowledged in their proper time frame. Andrea had a nice lunch ready when we got home, and I left for Denver 15 minutes after we got to the house from church with a full stomach and a series of nice hugs and kisses (thanks Andrea, Heather, Rachel, and Matt).

I was at the airport plenty early. Hopefully I have taught all of you that I have always strived to not travel on Sunday. Priest Quorum responsibilities and feeling I needed to be at the AAPG ice breaker to mix and make contacts resulted in my compromise last weekend. I was shocked at how long the lines were at the airport. It looks to me like everyone else in the world uses Sunday to travel on. Sad. The consequences of not honoring the Sabbath include the withdrawal of the spirit of the Lord, which can often prove to be the critical factor in success or failure of our activities. The lines were all the way to the doors going outside, and it took over 25 minutes to get through the security clearance the lines were so long. I didn't check bags and went straight to the gate, and was suprised at how long it took to get checked in. I had a new book Andrea got me: `A Brief History of Tomorrow, the future, past, and present' by Jonathan Margolis. He is British and has a funny sense of humor. It is an OK book, and not essential reading like `Ishmael.' I got to the third chapter on `Global Warming' by the time we got to Denver. I also read over the AAPG sessions and learned there was an entire session on global warming at the AAPG on Tuesday morning.

Riley Skeen met me at the airport and we had to wait for about 45 minutes in a line at Advantage to get a rental car. We were in line next to Marc Croes, who got a Masters Degree in Geophysics at the same time as we both got our B.S. Degrees at the University of Utah. He has an interesting Prospect he is selling in the Acquaitaine Basin of Southern France. As we listened to him describe his Prospect, I knew it was the right thing to have come to the AAPG. As Riley and I pulled into the parking lot downtown, Riley said `I guess I can go in there with jeans on, look at that old guy.' It was John Masters, the founder of Canadian Hunter, who made billions of dollars for a bunch of different investors. I said hello, and we spent a half an hour talking and catching up. I had heard he has a new company, which is exploring in the center of several basins. He was interested in one of my technologies of mutual interest: `TMI-003, A Cuttings and Core Imaging System.' As Riley and I walked into register, I told him that parking lot meeting might prove to be the most important one of the week. We'll see. On the other hand, maybe it will be the discussions about global warming.

I won't repeat all of the people I met with, talked to, set up follow-up meetings with, etc. Even though Monday morning was spent in Colorado Springs with Richard Nehring and company, even though Tuesday afternoon was spent in Boulder with Jake Eisel (a geological consultant who gave me 4 Prospects ready to drill in the Williston Basin), Jeff Winston (../9931.html, ../9935.html, ../9936.html, ../9937.html, and ../9949.html), Bob Wentland (Chroma Energy), and Geoffrey Dorn (formerly Arco Research and now at the University of Colorado at Boulder: ../0002.html, ../0006.html, and 0119.html), and Wednesday morning there was not time to meet with anyone before going to the airport to catch the plane, I collected 37 business cards, got commitments from a dozen companies to provide Dynamic with data, was able to return with nine new Prospects to add to Dynamic's inventory of deals to sell, and met with a lot of friends. Riley and I shared a hotel room to cut down on costs. At one point he said, `I really like Andrea, and I can't help but think of Marti when we talk.' I replied that even though I am happier than I have ever been, love my new family, and know it is right thing, my heart aches almost every day because of what could have been. Especially as I watch some of you kids struggle in ways you don't need to if you simply followed the simple truths we tried to teach. Riley went with me to the AAPG session on Global Warming on Tuesday morning, and watched as I asked the Keynote Speaker about the proportional contribution of CO2, the chief culprit among greenhouse gasses (because it doesn't decompose for over 100 years), from cement vs. burning fossil fuels. He was oblivious to the fact cement is an issue. His only response was that most of the CO2 issue with burning fossil fuels comes from burning coal. I left the room for another meeting after his talk with feeling of disgust for those who attack the oil companies because they are sometimes business successful.

I got back to Houston a half hour later than planned on Wednesday afternoon, and went downtown to work with II&T on bids for the 8 new BP Virtual Prospects. We worked until about 6:00, and I was at the house by 6:40. There had been some heavy rains while I was gone, and nothing seemed that unusual as I drove to Katy. There did not seek to be any eminent signs of global warming. Andrea had a nice meal, we ate, and went to Young Men's / Young Women's. The Priests were in charge of `BOM Awards' (Book of Mormon Video Awards). The Deacons, Beehives, Teachers, and Mia Maid videos were pretty lame in my book. Then the Laurels did theirs. Rachel is a star, and their video was really quite good. The Priests did not have a video when I left for Denver, and so I was more than curious about what they did. It was phenomenal. David Moore had filmed the story of the Strippling Warriors from Helaman, with ketchup, and in a funny way. I was proud to be working with these guys. And I had nothing to do with their success.

Thursday morning I couldn't get the Global Warming stuff out of my mind, and so I wrote the following e-mail:

`President Bush and Vice President Cheney, This is my first e-mail to elected representatives I voted for, and hopefully it will get through the filters and be of some use to the two of you, specifically prior to the international meeting on global warming in Bonn in July. As for my technical qualifications to write this note, I am a geologist/geophysicist and was the initial founder of Landmark Graphics, an oil field service company which Vice-President Cheney is acquainted with. Three things prompted this e-mail: 1. a special session at the AAPG (American Association of Petroleum Geologists) Annual Convention in Denver this week on "Approaches to Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions"; 2. the third chapter, on global warming, in a book I am reading: "A brief history of tomorrow" by Jonathan Margolis; and 3. an article in this morning's Houston Chronicle: "Panel: Global warming worsening" by Katharine Q. Seelye with the New York Times. Kevin E. Trenberth with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, was the keynote speaker at the AAPG session and is referenced on page 98 of "A brief history of tomorrow" as a leading global warming proponent. The book reports he argues it is vital to raise gasoline taxes one cent per gallon every month for ten years so as to allow people to adjust to the increase cost of hydrocarbons within a reasonable planning horizon. In Trenberth's talk at the AAPG he specified CO2 is the key cause of global warming and specifically because it takes 100 years to get CO2 out of the system. He pointed out that 2/3rds (8/12ths) of the warming is due to increased water in the atmosphere and 1/4th (3/12ths) is due to increases in CO2, which leaves 1/12th due to methane, nitrous oxide, sulphur, and other emmissions. He also said the main cause of increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is burning fossil fuels. However, when asked what impact of the degasing of cement has on CO2 in the atmosphere, he was not even aware it is an issue. It was interesting that his only response was that most of the CO2 from fossil fuels comes from burning coal, not from the burning of gasoline. I first became aware of the CO2 degassing from cement as a result of Biosphere 2, where that theater group got in trouble because of all of the CO2 in their enclosed environment. This CO2 was finally determined by Lamont Doherty of Columbia University to be due to degassing of the cement in the foundation. Pliny Fisk at the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems in Austin (pfisk@cmpbs.org) later told me that CO2 emssion from cement was one of the major pollutants from human built form, and specifically that Portland Cement is the worst CO2 pollution source on the planet. As a geologist, it is logical that limestone (ancient coral reefs) provides, by far, the largest physical storage for CO2 on the planet. There are tiny amounts of coal and hydrocarbons in the stratigraphic record compared to the amount of calcium carbonate (limestone, chalk, gypsum, etc.). Rain forrests do not capture much CO2, due to respiration and rotting of dead trees and plants. What little CO2 they capture is in marshy environments where coal and peat are created. With the recent death of many of the reefs around the world, one of the major sinks for CO2 has disappeared. And with the extensive mining of limestone deposits for cement around the world, one of the major sources of CO2 has been opened up. I have not yet found statistics to show how much CO2 is degassed from exposed limestone and cement, and I anticipate it exceeds the amount of CO2 that comes from the burning of coal by an order of magnitude, and most certainly far exceeds the amount of CO2 coming from the burning of hydrocarbons. Gas hydrates are a related phenomenon critical to any disucssion on global warming. According to Dr. Amos Nur at Stanford University, over half of the organic carbon in the earth is gas hydrates. Gas hydrates are composed of frozen methane, CO2, and nitrogen, in combination with water and are frozen in sediments between 1,200 and 1,600 feet of water in all of the oceans of the world. Over geologic time (specifically 20,000 year Milankovitch Cycles), as sea level drops a couple of hundred feet with a new ice age, these gases thaw and are expelled into the atmosphere, often in bursts, creating a greenhouse effect and a natural thermostat for warming the earth back up. Kyoto does not even acknowledge these most basic geologic concepts. I, like most people on the planet want the world to be around for my great-great grandchildren. However, I would like to see the conversation based around scientific facts and not just short term emotional responses. I came home from the AAPG Convention to a copy of "Earth Focus" from Friends of the Earth with the cover title: "The Energy Crisis: Is it Real? Or is it another blank check to the oil, mining, and gas gang?" It upsets me to see the industry I have spent 30 years working in referred to in such villainous terms for political purposes, and without real basis. Lindon J. Robison, a professor of agricultural economics at Michigan State University in 1992, described how humanity plays two types of games: (1) fixed pie games, where if you get something you must be taking some of it from me; and (2) pie-building games, where you have an ingredient, I have an ingredient, and as long as we keep providing our ingredients, we can keep making pies. I believe your political approach is one of pie-building, and am providing this data with the hope it can help support your environmental efforts. For what it is worth, the oil industry is not responsible for urban sprawl (if it is necessary to point a finger, we can select Frank Lloyd Wright, or any of thousands of developers across the country who build our cities around automobiles instead of around people), nor for the manufacturing of cars (Detroit, the unions, and car salesmen can have this credit). The oil industry does provide products which are used for fuel oils, kerosine, lubricating oils, asphalt, plastics, synthetic rubber, synthetic fibers, fertilizers, food additives, explosives, dyes, cosmetics, paint, ink, solvents, resins, drugs, etc. I find it interesting, when in a group contentious towards the oil industry, to ask them to take all of the petroleum products out of the environment we are sharing and to mentally experience sitting naked and cold in the dark. My last point is that it seems like our society needs to re-evaluate priorities relative to petroleum. Compare the price of a gallon of gasoline to the price of a Dairy Queen shake, water from the grocery store, or Starbuck's coffee. Then think about the Exxon-Mobil deepwater platform offshore Angola, and the fact this single structure is going to cost more than it cost to put a man on the moon. As you both know, government can play a major role in which game people choose to play, and I personally agree with Kevin Trenberth that we should artificially raise the price of using hydrocarbons for transportation. His suggested gradual increase in gasoline and disel tax seems appropriate, and would provide an economic incentive to improve urban planning (the use of cement), mass transit (unnecessary burning of fossil fuels), etc. This "windfall tax" can be used to provide temporary relief for it's transitional impact on the trucking industry, and then for longer term objectives like paying down the national debt. The tax could also be used to fund research projects on how to milk the extra water which is in the atmosphere due to human activity out of the air for agriculture and other human uses, and thus quickly reducing 2/3rds of the cause of global warming. Thank you for your time, and I hope the geotechnical data included in this e-mail actually makes it past staff filters and proves to be of some use to the efforts the two of you are making to make the world a better place for all of us and our descendents. Best Regards, H. Roice Nelson, Jr. President and Finder Dynamic Resources Corporation rnelson@walden3d.com; 281.579.0172; cell: 713.542.2207; facsimile: 281.579.2141 http://www.walden3d.com/dynamic'

I didn't have time to take half a day and write this e-mail about global warming, and yet if it happens to have any impact, it might have been one of the best half day's I have spent in years. It is often so hard to tell when we are making wise choices.

I spent Thursday afternoon working at II & T. There was a lot of rain and flooding in Sugar Land, and so I didn't want to go to Chroma, and I want to start getting the Offshore Texas model together. There was problems building the Landmark Project, and the only way I was able to get it up was thanks to Marc Roulston, who keeps my systems up at the house. I worked on it until 7:00 and got home about 7:30. I missed the Barker Cypress exit, and as I came up to Fry Road, I think I hit a duck which was crossing the road. I couldn't tell for sure and didn't try to go all the way around by Barker Cypress to see if I did. Oh well! By Thursday evening the flooding was getting serious in parts of town. Friday morning I was on the phone and worked at the house for a few hours. I got to Sugar Land and Chroma about 10:30, and only worked an hour before the power went out. I had left my blue journal downtown, and Andrea had driven down, picked it up for me, and brought it out I-59 to Chroma. The backup power went out about an hour after she left, and I decided to leave, rather than wait and see if power came back on. I went to the Saturn dealership, because I got a ticket for the green Saturn I traded in 5 years ago. Stopped and talked to Richard Uden at Continuum about helping to build the Offshore Texas model, went by Sam LeRoy's and caught him up with what I've been doing, stopped at PGS on Highway 6 and asked for some of their spec 3-D seismic data, went home and picked up the three TMI packets, and went back to Conoco where I met with Ed Reynolds and described Dynamic's business plan. Busy afternoon, and I was pleased with the response of everyone. There wasn't that much rain on the west side, and I didn't even think about the impact of global warming. Andrea was finishing up some sewing, which I will talk about next week (0125.html). Paul and Kate called and caught us up with all of their stuff. Paul, you and Kate are silly. I hope you always keep some of that with you. After the phone call, I couldn't help wonder if you are ready for the responsibilities of a child. Then I realized that silliness is what kids need, and I'm sure you will do fine.

I finished the book: `A Brief History of Tomorrow' Friday night and Saturday. Riley sent me a Federal Express package of the Prospect maps I left in the trunk of the car. Andrea was fasinated with the flooding news on the television. She wanted to get in the car and go help someone. I caught up reading my Mochin (Project Mind) e-mail for the first time in five years. Project Mind is the only news group I subscribe to (../9748.html, 9840.html, 9844.html, 9845.html, 9846.html, and 0004.html). There were two interesting things I feel it is worthwhile to share:

`One day a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. They picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him. The scientist walked up to God and said, "God, we've decided that we no longer need you. We're to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don't you just go on and get lost." God listened patiently and kindly to the man and after the scientist was done talking, God said, "Very well! How about this? Let's have a man making contest." To which the man replied, "OK, great!" But God added, "Now we're going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam." The scientist said, "Sure, no problem" and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt. God just looked at him and said, "No, no, no. You go get your own dirt!"' Mochin, 28 Aug 2000

And:

`GOD AND THE LITTLE GIRL "God, are you real?" The little girl whispered. "God, speak to me." And a Meadowlark sang, But the child did not hear. So the child yelled, "God, speak to me!" And the thunder rolled across the sky, But the child did not listen. The child looked around and said, "God, let me see you." And a star shone brightly, But the child did not notice. And the child shouted, "God, show me a miracle!" And a life was born, But the child did not know. So the child cried out in despair, "Touch me God, and let me know you are here!" Whereupon, God reached down and touched the child. But the child brushed the butterfly away, and walked away unknowingly. Often times, the things we seek are right underneath our nose. Don't miss out on your blessings because they aren't packaged the way that we expect.' Mochin 05 Mar 2000


Today has been nice. I was suprised about a page 2 article in this morning's Chronicle: `Bush touts research as Kyoto alternative.' He will be outlining his research and technology initiatives in a speach on Monday in Washington D.C. It will be interesting to see if he mentions CO2 from cement, coral reefs, gas hydrates, the `oil, gas, and mining gang,' pie building vs fixed pie, or the relative cost of a Dairy Queen malt and a gallon of gasoline. Sacrament meeting was good. Stephen Jones is home from the Air Force Acadamy and talked about Father's Day a week early. He said, `This is praise, if praise be needed, as a father he succeeded.' And `Nothing can honor our fathers more than righteous living and striving to achieve what they see as our potential.' Greg Jones has been called on a mission to Halifax. Steve and Robbyn Holleman's divorce will be finalized this week. We had a Priest Quorum Presidency Meeting with the new Presidency. Greg Stine wasn't there because of being stranded on Lake Livingston because of the flooding. I stopped and gave Rob a nice dictionary and thesarus for getting his GED. He was appreciative. He looks terrible. Black eye, which came from `messing around.' He says he is too busy to do anything with me because he is in the process of moving out to an apartment. I asked him to keep me informed of where he ends up. This visit was in such stark contrast from the church meetings, I realize anew why I often feel overwhelmed. Andrea had a wonderful pasta shrimp bean salad. We all watched Mulan after lunch, then I worked on this, then we had Family Home Evening, and Matt taught the lesson, and we played Clue. It is hard to remember in these circumstances that 12 people have died in Houston in the last three days from the storms, that thousands are out of their homes and in shelters, and that there is pretty direct evidence in Houston of the effects of global warming."

I'm interested in sharing weekly a "thoughtlet" (little statements of big thoughts which mean a lot to me) with you because I know how important the written word can be. I am concerned about how easy it is to drift and forget our roots and our potential among all of distractions of daily life. To download any of these thoughtlets go to http://www.walden3d.com/thoughtlets or e-mail me at rnelson@walden3d.com.

With all my love,
Dad
(H. Roice Nelson, Jr.)

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Copyright © 2001 H. Roice Nelson, Jr.