Just watched Schindlers List again :

[Il_Mostro]

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All those conclusons assume that nothing changes.

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I belive a lot of things are going to change. But for the worse, not for the better.

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If in 1200 A.D. we calculated the number of people that medieval farming techniques could support it would be an even smaller number.

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Yes, and since they did it then, we simply HAVE to do it now. Is that your argument? Have any insights into how highly mechanised farming is going to cope with energy shortage?

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But that would be a stupid thing to do because techniques are always changing and improving. In every endeavor not just food production.

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Only because we have more and more free energy to use. Which we wont, soon enough.

[natedogg]

Yes, and since they did it then, we simply HAVE to do it now. Is that your argument?

No my argument is that a prediction that requires stasis may not be very accurate.

Have any insights into how highly mechanised farming is going to cope with energy shortage?

GMO's == less spraying == less gas.

Oil scarcity == more use of natural gas (which reserves are estimated to be quite large).

Those are two off the top of my head. I think the doom and gloom prognosis (in any context) requires a profound lack of imagination, but luckily capitalism rewards imagination.

Remember "The Population Bomb"? We were all going to starve to death in 1987. That thesis also suffered from assuming stasis.

natedogg

[natedogg]

Mostro, don't get me wrong. I think you're absolutely right to be thinking about the effects of oil scarcity and not enough people do that who are in positions where they should.

I just disagree with your prognosis that the most likely scenario is a global economic meltdown resulting in mass starvation.

natedogg

[Il_Mostro]

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No my argument is that a prediction that requires stasis may not be very accurate.

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Most certainly. And my prediction does not rely on stasis.

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Oil scarcity == more use of natural gas (which reserves are estimated to be quite large).

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In North America the signs are that NG has already peaked. In any case we don't have any more than maybe 30 years of global supply. And it's a lot more difficult to transport than oil. And current infrastructure are not really built to use NG for anything but heat and eletricity.

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Those are two off the top of my head. I think the doom and gloom prognosis (in any context) requires a profound lack of imagination, but luckily capitalism rewards imagination.

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This is the usual argument you hear. "We will think of something". Well. Are we really going to bet all on that pretty crappy hand?
Also remember that whatever we are to "think of" is going to be highly technical, there is no new oil, nothing new to dig up out of the ground and starting to use.

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Remember "The Population Bomb"? We were all going to starve to death in 1987. Hehehe.

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This is just more of "we did it then, threrefor we MUST do it now".

I don't rule out a temporary techo-fix, but I find the faith a lot of people put into that to be mindboggling.

And exponential growth will get us in the end anyway.

[Il_Mostro]

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Mostro, don't get me wrong. I think you're absolutely right to be thinking about the effects of oil scarcity and not enough people do that who are in positions where they should.

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Thank you [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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I just disagree with your prognosis that the most likely scenario is a global economic meltdown resulting in mass starvation.

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I don't say it's inevitable, especially not the starving part, the economic meltdown seems harder to avoid. If we don't find a new source of energy I think it's inevitable.

[natedogg]

"This is the usual argument you hear. "We will think of something". Well. Are we really going to bet all on that pretty crappy hand?"

1. Not that we will think of something. That the negative prognosticator has not thought of things that others are working on already.

2. Do we have any choice but to bet on our hand? We could all stop using oil now and immediately begin starving... I'd rather let oil fuel a powerful economy that provides the means and opportunity to research alternatives...

But I agree with you that if nothing changes, our great great grandchildren are in for a world of hurt. Everyone knows this. At least I think they do. I'm just not convinced we have no alternatives. A lot of the reading I've done indicates to me that when the market begins to reward alternative energies they will prevail. We have options now in my opinion.

We could convert to cars and power plants that don't use oil with a little bit of luck and bit more research in directions we are already going. In my opinion.

And exponential growth will get us in the end anyway.

You don't mean people do you? Because exponential growth of people is not a constant. Witness the negative population growth of most industrialized nations today (not counting immigration)...

natedogg

[Cpt Spaulding]

Can you prevent death? NO..... People die and that is part of life. Worrying about it is a waste of time. I know this sounds cold, but it is the cold hard truth.

[Il_Mostro]

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2. Do we have any choice but to bet on our hand? We could all stop using oil now and immediately begin starving... I'd rather let oil fuel a powerful economy that provides the means and opportunity to research alternatives...

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This is basically what I say as well. We should use a lot more resources (economic and energy) to try and find a solution, not to make another plastic gadget we don't need.
I belive there will be inventions that will temporarily help, and hopefully also conservation.

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But I agree with you that if nothing changes, our great great grandchildren are in for a world of hurt.

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I actually think it will be closer than that (depending of course on how old you are).

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I'm just not convinced we have no alternatives. A lot of the reading I've done indicates to me that when the market begins to reward alternative energies they will prevail. We have options now in my opinion.

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The problem with all alternatives today is scale. The US alone uses 20 million b/d of oil. Nothing is even close to providing that. But there is of course a lot of time before all this energy has to be made from altenative. The trouble is that it might prove hard to fund massive reaserch once energy prices start rising due to depletion. It should be done now (well, it should have been done 30 years ago, Carter had something right at least).

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And exponential growth will get us in the end anyway.

You don't mean people do you? Because exponential growth of people is not a constant. Witness the negative population growth of most industrialized nations today (not counting immigration)...

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No, I don't mean people. Although that poses a new interesting question. We have not tried to have economic growth in an environment where we don't have more and more people each year. What will happen?

I mean raw material use. The current exponential growth in the use of iron, coal, oil, and most other things, cannot continue, we will run out sooner or later. And when we run out we will for ever have deprived the coming generations from these resources.

George Monbiot had an interesing article on this, basically saying that we have moved from colonizing in space (taking south america for it's gold, africa for slaves and/or other things and so on) to colonizing in time, we are now using up resources at a scale that will make it impossible for future generations to use them.

[Il_Mostro]

Yes. But having 35000 people starving to death each day might be something to worry about. Especially since there is enough food to stop it.

[elwoodblues]

Exactly, I mean that Schindler guy was just wasting his time. People die all the time.