mondongo said:
If any of you actually read that article and came away impressed by its factual/technical claims....tsk,tsk,tsk.
Impressed? No. Of course it is left-leaning, conspiracy theoretical, tree-hugging 'bunk'. I must confess, these days my reading preferences seem to have changed. For amusement, I'd rather read some of my favorite 'left-leaning' news sites, than the right leaning ones. At the risk of making a quasi-political comment, I'd rather read about the 'Asses of Evil' than the 'Axis of Evil'. Personally, that is...
mondongo said:
By the way, I DO belive that we will run out of oil sooner that later.
This is the single fact that somehow, instinctively, we all know. The debate can then be centered around the alarmist view of "WHEN" this calamity will occur, or the debate can be centered around and focused on finding and changing to sustainable, reliable, affordable technologies. Once new technologies are proven, the change-over to these deserve serious attention and serious money. I believe we all agree on that.
For me, this issue has two faces or focusses (or is it foci?). Firstly, new technologies and the changeover and application of those. And the second focus is the social changes required to adapt and thrive with new technologies. This is exactly the issue that governments today are not giving attention to, and in many cases, hiding away from their voting population. This is also a universal problem, and would need teamwork across nations to solve. Huh? will this happen? Well, it is quite a fascinating problem, and I would happily be debating the issues, if not for the seriousness of the situation. I believe as mankind we should go directly to the heart of this problem, and go there quite quickly.
In the report that Keith R linked, two of the conclusions state.. Government intervention will be required.. and .. Economic upheaval is not inevitable - but only if mankind should start acting and mitigating the situation. "Heads in the sand" will not resolve the problem - imo, the biggest threat mankind faces at the moment. In my thinking, I cannot divorce the issue of shortage and peaking of oil and fossil fuels, from the social issues. Even the issue of poverty is quite deeply linked to the provision of energy. Environmentally, the whole situation would be improved in one fell swoop if we can just get our collective minds around generation of clean, renewable and affordable energy.
In my thinking what should happen, is that some of the real clever folks should start already and work out more definitively how much time we have, and the rest of mankind,including their Governments, should start involving themselves in working out alternatives, mitigators and getting into an implementation phase.
Here in the DR, can we start with finding alternative and sustainable single person (up to four persons, two being little ones) transportation methods and replace the motoconchos already please?
Suddenly I have a funny vision on a corner of Puerto Plata of a mass of motoconchos replaced by those little battery operated cars that you see used for the elderly.. Just think of the social implications of all this loss of machisimo. :laugh:
Will mankind miraculously find and adapt to new solutions? I don't think so. The vision of a new 'stone age' becomes quite real, if we put the problem of increasing energy costs in a third world, specifically DR context. Here, we cannot even afford the existing energy generation solutions. The price hike on the other side of the oil peaking curve is unthinkable for this country. Is it not time to think of new solutions anyway, whether doomsday sayers say we have 5 years and other scientists arguing that we have 40? Is the period really that important?