Hope or Delusion?

[cronus]

All these recent advances are powered by cheap energy though, mostly oil. Whilst new sources are appearing they look less than likely to be scaled up before we hit peak oil, which may have already happened, and the collapse of the international fiscal system that makes so much co-operation possible. Like it or not this 'golden' age is a transient phase and normal human misery will return to your screens shortly, please remain seated.

[Audley Strange]

Anyone remember those international murder festivals in the early part of the last century? Is it hard then to imagine that a group of end-time crazies could usurp a first world country, especially one with the capability to nuke the planet and spread all sorts of chemical and biological weaponry?

[Horwood Beer-Master]

I agree that no other period comes close to the present; but there have been other periods where the people living at the time could equally justly have claimed "no other period comes close to the present".

It is always wrong to regard the present as somehow equivalent to some-or-other particular period in history; but it is also wrong to regard the uniqueness and advancement of the present as some kind of immunity from sharing a similar kind of fate to peoples of the past.

Not even possession of the theoretical technical and organisational ability required in order to avoid a particular catastrophe (still less the optimistic hope that we will possess these things in time) is any kind of guarantee that you actually will avoid it.

[Horwood Beer-Master]

"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so" - Douglas Adams

"History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme" - Mark Twain

[Blind groper]

Whilst new sources are appearing they look less than likely to be scaled up before we hit peak oil, which may have already happened, and the collapse of the international fiscal system that makes so much co-operation possible.

We are all too young to remember the great whale oil energy crisis, where the population as growing faster than the supply of oil for lamps etc.

We are all too young to remember the great horse shit crisis in our great cities, in which the production of equine ordure was exceeding humanity's capacity to remove it.

We tend to forget the problems of the past, since they are no longer problems, and focus on the potential problems of the present. That is when the doomsday prophets go to work, saying : "We are doomed. Doomed, I tell you."

So today we have the spectre of peak oil and global warming, and the age old cry of "Doomed. Doomed." rings out across the land. Every time in the past 400 years the prophets have called "Doomed. Doomed." they have been wrong. The next 50 years will show how wrong the present day doom prophets are.

[cronus]

Whilst new sources are appearing they look less than likely to be scaled up before we hit peak oil, which may have already happened, and the collapse of the international fiscal system that makes so much co-operation possible.

We are all too young to remember the great whale oil energy crisis, where the population as growing faster than the supply of oil for lamps etc.

We are all too young to remember the great horse shit crisis in our great cities, in which the production of equine ordure was exceeding humanity's capacity to remove it.

We tend to forget the problems of the past, since they are no longer problems, and focus on the potential problems of the present. That is when the doomsday prophets go to work, saying : "We are doomed. Doomed, I tell you."

So today we have the spectre of peak oil and global warming, and the age old cry of "Doomed. Doomed." rings out across the land. Every time in the past 400 years the prophets have called "Doomed. Doomed." they have been wrong. The next 50 years will show how wrong the present day doom prophets are.

You could be right, but what if you are wrong?

[Blind groper]

Scrumple

Nothing I have said suggests that we ignore problems. Problems are challenges to be tackled. The truth is that those problems are already being tackled. Peak oil is being tackled by those who are learning to exploit alternatives, like shale oil, natural gas, and the Japanese who are drilling for methane clathrate. There are also many people tackling alternative technologies, like making hydrogen in various ways and reacting it with biomass to create hydrocarbons. Some researchers here in NZ are growing algae in sewage treatment ponds to produce oil for biodiesel.

In the broader sense, new energy sources are being explored world wide. In my country, we have a project under way to install giant turbine blades deep in our Cook Strait channel, to turn with the moving of the tides, and generate electricity. Elsewhere, there are those who develop thorium nuclear power, or nuclear reactors using U238 instead of the more normal U235. New Scientist has an article on a new, ground turbine, that is more efficient that wind mills for turning wind to electricity.

Some of these technologies will reduce dependence on coal for generating electricity, and thus combat global warming.

I could write a small book on this topic, but I guess you get the idea.