Diplomacy

 

 

 

Reuters

Sustainable Aviation Fuels

Sustainable aviation fuel is made of used cooking oil, waste animal fat, and a small amount of synthetic kerosene made from waste corn. 

On November 28 a Virgin Atlantic Boeing 787 with two Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines flew from London to New York in about 8 hours powered entirely by SAF. While the SAF is three to five times more expensive than ordinary JP-4 the flight was apparently meant to prove a point, that it's possible to eliminate the 2-3% of atmospheric CO2 produced through commercial aviation by using the filtered grease that once cooked french fries and fish filets.

 

 aviationnewsource.com

One of the most important aspects of commercial jet engine design has been fuel economy, engines must use the minimum amount of fuel to get from point A to point B. This line of thinking has been suspended to mollify the climate paranoids until passenger aircraft are powered by batteries or some other revolutionary process. 

  

Far North Wind Turbines

 

                       adn.com

 

Doyon Drilling, an Alaska Northslope oil development company, has installed two wind turbines to augment the diesel generators that have supplied power to contractors at Prudhoe Bay since activity began there in the 1960s. 

" Based on historical wind data, the turbines have an estimated daily output of 1,440 kilowatt-hours. That’s equivalent to burning about 100 gallons of diesel fuel, Doyon said."

While that doesn't seem very significant, if there's any place where wind turbines might make a smidgen of economic sense it would be at Prudhoe Bay. The harsh elements of the area will put the equipment to the test and information gathered will be useful in later projects, should they be undertaken. 

The BBC And Sea Level Rise In Miami

The BBC, having an undeserved reputation for honesty and good sense in the US that it has never enjoyed in its own country, has published a story that is actually funny in its misperception.

The article is about the increase in rents in the Miami, Florida area due to sea level rise. It seems that developers are buying up property inland from lower lying Miami beach areas, raising the rents of the impoverished residents and destroying a unique culture in the Little Haiti area.

Miami, perhaps the financial capital of Latin America, is itself an interesting and exciting urban landscape on the sea that attracts people from all over the world. There is a demand for the property there. But the city is located on the Atlantic Ocean. If property is to be developed there, it will happen further inland rather than on the ocean. And, as is usually the case, the elevation further inland is higher than it is on the shore. Since the beach area is already developed with new high-rise condominiums and apartments, any further construction will take place to the west, regardless of elevation. 

The demand for this property means its price will increase, about as simple as economics can be. This is a fact everywhere, not just in locations that are supposedly scheduled to sink beneath the waves. If the current residents of Little Haiti are unable or unwilling to pay the rent or purchase the property they will, like others in similar circumstances, be forced to move to less desirable locations. Climate change and rising sea levels, even if true, have nothing to do with it. This is another example of the BBC, like other established media, promoting the existential threat of climate change through "climate pornography" rather than genuine science.  

What The Energy Transition Means For The Country

brookings.edu

The misguided effort to transition the US economy away from fossil fuels to renewable electricity generation via wind turbines, solar  panels and green hydrogen along with carbon capture and sequestration will, even if physically successful, cause an incredible drop in the US standard of living and a monstrous decline in economic activity.

This is because literally trillions of dollars in wealth will need to be transferred to those making changes in energy production to what will inevitably be more expensive on a daily basis. Everything will become more expensive and there will be less money available for consumer purchases because family discretionary budgets will be decimated by energy costs. Fewer clothes dryers, crock pots, football tickets, bottles of tequila, condoms, dental services, on-line newspaper subscriptions, flash lights and used cars will be sold because money will have been diverted to erecting offshore wind turbines and fields of solar panels. Such an event is known as a depression. 

The mystery here is how the guys that actually run things, the upper level of the business community, can allow this to take place, since it will be a catastrophe for them as well as the proles. In a consumer society there must be enthusiastic consumers whose purchases turn the gears of commerce. Money must have volatility, it must change hands on a daily basis. Borrowing and credit cards won't make up for acres of solar panels bought with more taxes and higher electric rates. It will be interesting to see if there are riots by local chambers of commerce in the months to come.      

The Growth of Science in Society

"...the principle of mutual authority. It consists in the fact that scientists keep watch over each other; each scientist is both subject to criticism by others and is encouraged by their appreciation. This is how scientific opinion is formed, both enforcing scientific standards and regulating the distribution of professional opportunities and research grants. Naturally, only fellow scientists working in closely related fields are competent to exercise authority over each other; but their restricted fields form chains of overlapping neighborhoods extending over the entire range of sciences.

Thus a an indirect consensus is formed between scientists so far apart  that they could not understand more than a small part of each other's subjects. It is enough that the standards of plausibility and worthwhileness be equal around every single point for this will keep them equal over all the sciences. Scientists from the most distant branches of science will rely then on each other's results and will blindly support each other against any laymen seriously challenging a scientist's professional authority.

This is the way the scientific community is organized. These are the grounds on which science rests. This is the way in which discoveries are made. Science is governed by common beliefs, by values and practices transmitted to succeeding generations. Each new independent member of the scientific community adheres to this tradition, assuming at the same time the responsibility shared by all members for re-interpreting the tradition and, possibly, revolutionizing its teachings."

Michael Polanyi, The Growth of Science in Society, Knowing and Being, pg 84-85, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637.

______________________________________

The renowned Polanyi wrote those words in 1967. While there may have been an element of truth in his statement then perhaps there have been some changes in the 56 years that have elapsed since that simpler time. For instance, computer models intended to predict future conditions in complex, little understood systems, are evidently accepted across portions of the scientific community, the indirect consensus, and that acceptance has spread to the mass media and large elements of the population who are not members of the scientific community. While there is strong disagreement about a number of scientific conclusions within the pertinent scientific community engaged in a particular field, media, government and business seem to embrace the ones that appear to have the most potential for their own financial rewards without considering the economic ramifications for the rest of society. There's little  genuine risk-reward analysis of various scenarios. 

The mutual authority that Polanyi talked about is aware of the funding available for research and the competition among research institutions for those funds. In fact, they are among the competitors for that funding. It is in their financial interest to skew scientific debate in favor of continuing research in ephemeral problems for which there is no solution.  

      

Climate Change Propaganda

 

 

An interesting article from the BBC homepage tells us about the problems of climate change propaganda, why images of polar bears are no longer considered the best ones to illustrate how the earth is being consumed by heat. What's of interest is that a website for the enlightenment of the general public has exposed how the perceptions of that same public are manipulated by special interests. 

"On the one hand, polar bear images can be a compelling tool to inspire donations from sympathetic audiences, says Pritchard. Similar to the panda, which became a beloved symbol for nature conservation and the mascot for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in 1961, the polar bear became a hallmark for a world people wanted to protect."

Of course the people most interested in protecting the polar bear are the least likely to ever lay an eye on one. There are humans that have a reasonable chance of encountering a polar bear in their daily rounds. They sensibly try to avoid such a thing. If polar bears, or pandas, were wandering down suburban alleys, turning over waste bins and lunching on pet cockapoos there would be a bounty program on them. The reason that people are worried about their future is that they actually know little about them and never encounter them. Other wild animals that are occasionally seen in populated areas are regarded as a threat. 

So the climate change propagandists are changing their focus from bears above the Arctic Circle to people near the Equator. 

A company called Climate Visuals supplies the images needed in the new propaganda. The visuals may not exactly correspond to the issues presented but that isn't any more important than the graphics used to market soap or breakfest food. The operation is a sales job.

   "Telling new stories is also a key principle. "There's an issue with image fatigue. A lot of people will be familiar with polar bear images," says Johnstone. Moving away from tired images is a chance to offer hope. "If you marry emotionally powerful images with solutions-based photography, people have a more detailed connection to the image," he adds."

In other words, he's talking about "climate porn". 

Conspiracy Theories

Conspiracy

Merriam-Webster

1. The act of conspiring together

2. a. An agreement among conspirators

    b. A group of conspirators

  Conspiracy Theory

Merriam-Webster:  a theory that explains an event or set of circumstances as the result of a secret plot by usually powerful conspirators

 

The definitions of "conspiracy" aren't theories. Each is a noun indicating a fact. The definition of "conspiracy theory" would require a further definition of theory, per Merriam-Webster: 

3. a. a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or  investigation

   b. an unproved assumption

   c. a body of theorems presenting a concise,    systematic view of a subject

 

Conspirator

Merriam-Webster: one who conspires

 

The key word in these definitions is "secret". Conspirators are simply involved in a conspiracy, acting together to produce an event or set of circumstances. Putting conspiracy and secret together produces an undeserved negative connotation. Many activities in society are performed by groups with unclear agendas, in private and public. Does that make them conspiracies? Perhaps not in a semantic sense. Corporations jealously withhold tactics and goals, designs, recipes and procedures; demanding secrecy of all pertinent employees. Governments are especially fond of secrets, agencies keeping information from other parts of government as well their subjects and rivals. The CIA, NSA, FBI and other acronymical offices function on secrets. Are they conspiracies and is regarding them as such "conspiracy theory"? Not generally. The classification of information as to its accessibility is considered necessary and normal in those circumstances. Revealing them can be a life-changing experience. Ask Julian Assange or Edward Snowden.

What other groups hoard or conceal information or perhaps even alter it to suit their own purposes? Is it an unprovable theory that a group whose members are closely aligned in their goals may be selective or false in the information they advance as truth? Is the use of propaganda indicative of conspiracy? At what point do the actual theories, unproven, advanced by a group become conspiracies?

Considering the international fraud of anthropogenic climate change and its remedies as a conspiracy is generally regarded as preposterous. The situation itself has been advanced by elements of the academic scientific community, a group with enormous prestige and credibility. The media has used their findings to increase digital clicks. Government at every level has seen the opportunity to increase their power. Business has jumped on findings of academia to develop new and expensive approaches to AGW. For these groups the concept of death by CO2 is a license to print money, their conspiracy doesn't need to be secret, It just has to be believable, or maybe only possible.

The fact that the predictions of the climate alarmists have yet to be even remotely accurate hasn't deterred academics, government, the media and business from assuming the worst. At the same time, the informed elites are purchasing seaside property at incredible prices. Television news presenter Diane Sawyer has just sold her beach front property on Martha's Vineyard for $23.9 million to an individual that has spent more than $100 million acquiring properties on Nantucket Island and Martha's Vineyard. Condos near the beach in Miami are sold out before being built. 

People with the money to purchase property like this have access to any information they desire. That information hasn't deterred them from investing millions in beach property that's supposedly doomed to be submerged.

 

   

 

Punishing Wayward American Management

 

 

If we're paying attention we're aware that Asian business and government figures involved in crime or corruption can be in big trouble. In China there's a special department in their judicial system that looks for criminal behavior at the most elite levels. Nobody hears about one of their investigations or arrests until it's noticed that the offender hasn't been seen for a period of time.  Chen Shaojie, a boss at DouYu, and pharmaceutical executive Zhao Bingxian are both being held by authorities. A recent South Korean president was imprisoned for corruption and cronyism.

Americans realize that this practice is much different than what happens in similar circumstances on the fruited plain.

The Yankees settle debts to society with money. The latest case involves the makers of the celebrated I-Phone, Apple, current stock valuation $182.41 per share.

The US Dept. of Labor has established a PERM program,  a permanent labor certification issued by the Department of Labor (DOL)  that allows an employer to hire a foreign worker to work permanently in the United States. Typically, it's a complicated process. 

The Dept. of Justice says the company didn't adequately advertise openings and required applicants to submit hard copy applications and has charged them with a violation of anti-discrimination procedures. Apple admits to its failure and in an agreed settlement will pay $6.75 million in civil penalties and establish an $18.25 million fund to compensate discrimination victims. 

Of course this money will come from the account of Apple itself, not from the personal funds of Apple management, who seemed to be sorry for their lack of attention to the requirement. And in what's actually a violation of federal law so serious that $25 million is involved, no company executive is being fined, put on probation, incarcerated, ordered to attend classes or perform community service. The Department of Justice does get $6.75 million to use for something or other. 

 

Another Important Meeting

 

Beginning today business and media nabobs will gather in Singapore for the sixth annual Bloomberg New Economy Forum. 

 Built around the theme of “Embracing Instability”, the Forum will challenge and inspire global leaders to find common ground amid geopolitical stresses, economic obstacles, technological upheaval and climate change

Challenge and inspiration, that's all that's needed to pull the world out of stresses, obstacles, upheaval and change. The leaders will get together, talk it all over, and then instruct their followers on what they must do. That is, after all, the role of leaders, in their perennial role of overcoming the ignorance and ineptitude of the masses. 

No doubt a conversation between John Forbes Kerry or Henry Kissinger with their counterpart from some less blessed nation will go a long way toward remedying technological upheaval or arresting a climate change that spells the impoverishment and eventual extinction of homo sapiens. 

The real problem for these Bloomberg invitees isn't finding common ground. Instead, it's getting their own followers to believe in both the nature and dimension of the reputed problems and the proposed solutions. 

Academia identifies the problems and solutions; the media, including Bloomberg, distributes the information; governments at various levels administer and regulate the responses of businesses in eliminating the problem; the legal industry makes sure it's all done according to the rules-based order.

It has become increasingly apparent that the post-Enlightenment concept of democracy that assumes the population is capable of making meaningful and correct decisions about its future has been made obsolete by the growing complexity of the world. "Populism", allowing the whims of the miseducated masses to structure modern government and society, is so yesterday. Thus the elites of the world gather, as they now do on an almost monthly basis, in some oasis with adequate food and housing, to chatter with their contemporaries. The "first world" representatives advise changes that will have a minimal effect on their own status. The leaders of the rest make requests for funding that can be used to somehow propel them to economic equality. On return to their homelands, the leaders carry on much as they did before.    

  

 

 

Why Renewable Energy Is An Existential Crisis

 

foxnews.com

There have been apocalyptic predictions through all  of recorded history. In the past, they were generally based on offense to the gods or immoral behavior, also an offense to the gods. In the present age, when God is dead and the dominant atheists are in charge, the predictions of universal destruction are based on the violations of natural law, determined by science. 

It turns out that contemporary science is as much of a religion as Lutheranism or Hinduism. It's based on a similar mythology. But that's not actually the point. The focus isn't on a mythology, it's about money.

The energy business, the business that keeps the giant gears of commerce turning, is a very new one. The first commercial oil well was drilled near Titusville, PA, in 1859, only 164 years ago, its product being used to produce kerosene for home lighting. Shortly after that engines were developed that ultimately led to vehicles like the Chevrolet Corvette and Volkswagen Beetle. Despite some fits, starts and bankruptcies the world came to embrace fossil fuels for powering transportation, electrical generation, home and commercial heating and eventually the majority of energy used in the developed world.

In science, business and government nothing stands still for very long. Hydro power, one of the oldest forms of energy production, remains to this day a very minor one. Related to geographical and geological elements, there are no new sites usable for the necessary dams.

Nuclear fission power has been successful but the fear that it inspires imposes huge and expensive issues in siting, regulation, construction and maintenance. Many plants are being shut down. Even those operating under current licensing can only produce electrical power and don't make a meaningful contribution to transportation.

Fossil fuels, hydro power and nuclear power are mature industries. The players involved are very much involved. There are no openings for new operators. The multi-billion dollar major oil companies, while engaged in a certain amount of competition among themselves, have no fear of an entrepreneur setting up the exploration, development, refining and marketing that enables them to be profitable. People complain about "big oil" but that's the only kind there is. There's no such thing as "Mom and Pop oil".

Hydro power is a cooperation between utilities and the government. It is what it is.

Nuclear power is also a cooperative effort between utilities, the regulatory branch of government and the contractors able to build and maintain nuclear reactors. Its unlikely that any new companies will enter that field.

That's what makes the war on CO2, climate change and renewable power so important. It's an environment open to new players, just as the fossil fuel industry was a century and a half ago. However, in that era, fossil fuels only had to outdo wood, sperm oil, sails and water wheels. It was easy. Fossil fuels advantages were quite apparent and they became dominant except in the most isolated situations.

Those advantages still exist. All things being equal, renewables of whatever kind can't improve on the performance of fossil fuels at this time. The renewable advocates must develop a strategy that allows them to join and surpass their fossil fuel enemies. It's climate change.

The forces that have joined the renewable push and fossil fuel elimination are formidable. The leaders are academia, the government, media, business and legal industry. Academia, in an age of unquestioned scientific and technological wonder, may be the most trusted division of western culture. They are the researchers that discover the problems to be faced and construct the needed solutions. This means that they are showered with funding both public and private that enables them to build facilities and hire employees. They have discovered that the current level of CO2 in the atmosphere, 421 parts per million and rising, is likely to rapidly raise the global temperature to an extent that life on earth will disappear. Forcibly removing a portion of the current atmospheric CO2 and eliminating it as a by-product of fossil fuel combustion are necessary for survival of life.

Government, always on the alert for opportunities to expand its power has become closely involved in renewable resources. 

The media, using academia as a source for its apocalyptic predictions, feels a need to broadcast them in lieu of "It's another nicer day, today. The Kardashians are out getting some sun".

The entreprenurial spirit, constantly in search of new opportunities, has embraced renewable power with a vengeance. Solar power, on and offshore wind turbines, fusion power, battery-powered electrical vehicles and whatever comes next are relatively undeveloped fields that are receiving substantial research and funding. The American fetish with the "new" also plays a part in the rapid adoption of untested solutions to imaginary problems.

The legal industry, omnipresent in every aspect of American life, will, as always, extract its toll from each transaction or dispute.

The most interesting feature of the renewable craze is that those involved with the four components identified above move seamlessly from one to the other, back again, and to another, multiple times. Academics and institutional figures move to government, then to business, sometimes to media, and are often members of the bar. They are all taking advantage of the opportunity that academic researchers have given them by identifying an innocuous gas as the most dangerous thing on earth. This isn't about science, its about money.        

Is This The CIA?

 

thedailybeast.com

Using techniques probably a part of his training in  clandestine operations this slimeball  is looking at a prison sentence of up to 30 years for drugging, raping and taking over 500 videos of women in a number of countries around the world. He pleaded guilty to 4 of 25 charges. Brian Jeffrey Raymond won't be extradited to any of the countries where he did things that Jeffrey Epstein never dreamed of. In both Mexico and Peru he would be assured of a much shorter but fatal sentence.

Raymond would be in even hotter water if Justice Dept. and State Dept. investigators had followed required procedures in the investigation. But it's too much to expect from government employees to actually obey the rules.   

UK Artificial Intellligence

 

 

UK Research and Innovation has awarded £117 million to academic institutions and training centers in the country to implement artificial intelligence applications especially related to carbon emissions and renewable energy.

Perhaps there are no other bodies than academic available to perform this task. Or, maybe the recipients have created the platform. UKRI is a government agency of sorts whose goal is to finance important research efforts. In this particular instance some questions arise. 

Being that CO2 has been widely identified as the root problem of climate change, why is further research on the subject and its alleviation even necessary? Practical solutions, wind turbines, solar panels, hydrogen production, etc. are currently being adopted. Or have climate scientists been in error? Such has been the case in the past. Are there other possible causes as yet undiscovered? If there were, how would AI determine this? Is AI capable of truly original "thinking"?

Suppose that these AI investigations indicate that CO2 doesn't have any significant effect on world climate. What then? Or, on the basis of current thinking, isn't it likely that AI will sift through all internet traffic and reach that conclusion as well? Does AI operate as a sort of democratic science vote counter? Wouldn't it reject a correct hypotheses if it was only embraced by a few?

Will AI search into the economic aspects of a replacement of fossil fuels with renewables? Or will a potential disaster far into the future outweigh one that may or may not occur a generation ahead? Would AI be able to figure out the risk-reward ratio of continuing the use, at least for now, of fossil fuels vs. renewables?

The best future use of AI in Britain might be to retrieve England's reputation in cricket as their national team has been eliminated in the 2023 Cricket World Cup after going 1-6 in the preliminary rounds. 

 

The DUNE Project

Perhaps you've never heard of the DUNE project, or, maybe you just haven't seen its current acronym. DUNE stands for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment.

A facility in Batavia, IL, also the US headquarters of international grocer Aldi, Fermilab will accelerate protons through a converter that will then send neutrinos 800 miles underground to the Sanford Underground Research Facility in the depths of the now-closed Homestake Mine in Lead, South Dakota. The research conducted through this process is intended to provide evidence in regard to the actual birth of the universe. This is scientific reductionsim at its most intense level.

The project's ballooning price tag, now over $3 billion, and its construction problems and delays have led to reconsideration and modifications of the research. Some programs have been added.

The biggest issue is the practical value of the research results. Of what importance is it to gain possible knowledge of the mechanics of the development of the cosmos when other, more important things plague mankind? The scientists themselves welcome the financing that pays their salaries and others connected to the programs are its only real beneficiaries. 

This entire project could be seen as an extreme example of academic financial indulgence, where research institutions leverage their sterling reputations to expand their economics. It's questionable if its a luxury that society can really afford.

 "In a democracy scientific institutions, research programmes, and suggestions must therefore be subjected to public control, there must be a separation of state and science just as there is a separation between state and religious institutions, and science should be taught as one view among many and not as the one and only road to truth and reality.”

― Paul Karl Feyerabend, Against Method

 

 

Hydrogen Enthusiasm

An article in the Monday WSJ tells of an interest in the production of hydrogen by fossil fuel entities in the US gulf coast area who are in a good position to use one of the most developed methods, steam-gas reforming. This process uses natural gas as both a heat source and feed stock to separate hydrogen from natural gas with the consequent by-product of CO2, supposedly the big problem in climate change. Other techniques continue to be explored.

Exxon Mobil seems to be covering all the bases by both getting into hydrogen production and expanding their capabilities in fossil fuel, having recently purchased Pioneer Natural Resources and its assets in a $60 billion deal. Competitor Chevron then made a similar move, acquiring Hess. These companies propose to capture the CO2 and sequester it deep in the earth, perhaps for many centuries. They will continue to produce and market petroleum products.

The WSJ article points out that there's a belief that the US has an advantage over other countries which have gotten into solar and wind power more quickly in that the US already has a significant infrastructure advantage and processing capability in hydrogen, a competitive advantage in the world-wide fight against boiling seas. They're probably hoping that other governments will buy their product or processes rather than continue to destroy the atmosphere.

The economics of the hydrogen revolution remain unclear. According to stackexchange.com:

 "Combustion is a gaseous phase phenomenon. Oil and gasoline have a high enough vapor pressure at ambient temperatures to produce a gaseous phase of fuel above the liquid. In contrast, hold a lighter up to a piece of wood and try to get it to light. It won't—at least not for quite some time. This is because solid fuels must first undergo endothermic pyrolysis before real combustion can occur. This produces a slew of products which are what truly undergo combustion when solids are burned. Because combustion is exothermic, once a high enough temperature is reached the solid will autopyrolyze, making combustion a self-sustaining reaction."

This means that in general hydrocarbons are in a gaseous state during the combustion process, as is the oxygen with which they combine. Ordinarily both gases are only slightly above atmospheric pressure when combustion takes place. Unless some other process is used, a cubic foot of hydrogen at atmospheric pressure produces about one third the BTU of a similar volume and pressure of natural gas. Combustion of natural gas is likely to be much more energy efficient and economical than hydrogen, even if some CO2 is a by-product.

The moves made by oil producers are meant to protect their position in US and world industry regardless of the politics involved.

  

Bad News For Chinese EV Workers

Major Chinese electric automobile manufacturer Nio has announced that 10% of its 7000 member work force is being cut in an effort to lower costs and increase efficiency in the world's largest EV market. The Shanghai-based company has increased sales figures but still fails to meet its own goals.

 evmagz.com 

Nio has introduced a new model in Europe and plans for sales in the US and other countries. Its goal is to import premium EVs to the US by 2025.  

Traitor Charles McGonigal Update

Charles McGonigal, the high-ranking FBI agent that retired and went to work for the Russian oligarch he'd spent years investigating has reached a plea deal with prosecutors of the Southern District of New York. Pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy and money laundering, he faces the possibility of 5 years in prison at a sentencing hearing scheduled for Dec. 14.

 

thenewdaily.com.au 

He's also under federal indictment in Washington, DC, for receiving thousands of dollars from Albanian interests while he was still an FBI agent. That case is yet to be resolved. 

 

Arizona Hydrogen

Tall Grass Energy, an anti-CO2 company headquartered in the Denver area, is attempting to construct a hydrogen production facility and attached pipeline on the Navajo reservation in the Black Mesa region of northeastern Arizona. It's meeting some local opposition. Despite being offered money, the local natives, unseen and unheard in their near desert homeland, are worried about the water requirements of the proposed plant and piping. 

It isn't enough that the Navajos and other tribes have been forced to settle for marginal properties that the Anglo invaders once deemed worthless. Now that a potentially lucrative financial situation shimmers on the horizon, the capitalists want the use of even this barren and unforgiving landscape. 

Fortunately, some of the Navajos have taken advantage of educational opportunities that have enabled them to deal with these matters through the use of the arcane US legal system. Hopefully, they'll be able to come to their own conclusions and determine their own fate in this matter.