[Ludi]

Oh nonsense, you can disagree with Monte! Or I can, anyway, I know I have, or in any case, there is a difference of opinion between us on some points.

This is stupid!

[bobcousins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'O')k, so the strawman was Monte saying "literally overnight" when he meant "figuratively overnight." Lots of people make that mistake.

Thanks for clarifying, bobcousins.

[bobcousins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'O')h nonsense, you can disagree with Monte! Or I can, anyway, I know I have, or in any case, there is a difference of opinion between us on some points.

This is stupid!

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bobcousins', 'I') said Monte was using a strawman, Monte says that is an ad hominem attack.

[DefiledEngine]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')The idea that there is a singular point of no return is itself a [possible ad hominen deleted], so [possible ad hominen deleted]. It's just a [possible ad hominen deleted], so is [possible ad hominen deleted].

[Ludi]

Thank you for clarifying, bobcousins.

If the nuke booster are indeed NOT claiming to be proposing a figurative overnight (rapid) solution, what are they actually proposing?

What are the nuke boosters actually proposing?

[bobcousins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rogerhb', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bobcousins', 'I') said Monte was using a strawman, Monte says that is an ad hominem attack.

[bobcousins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DefiledEngine', 'A')nyway, wouldn't an expression like "figuratively overnight" be completely adequate to use for solutions to a problem like peak oil, a problem that is mainly viewed as a rapid development compared to the timescales involved? Wouldn't a solution have to be somewhat rapid as well?

[bobcousins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'T')hank you for clarifying, bobcousins.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bobcousins', ' ')The implication is that if we build 3000 reactors by 2025, we are saved. Phew! But if we only build 2999, or maybe 2900, or reach the target number in 2027, then we are doomed. What exactly lies beyond the point of return anyway - a little hardship, a great depression or a mass die-off?

[Jake_old]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rogerhb', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('crapattack', '.').. then nuke is a red herring.

[Ancien_Opus]

The lack of time for any logistical solution to peak oil is intuitively obvious.

Staggering numbers such as 1.5 billion Chinese * half want to drive = 750 million vehicles = boat loads of fuel, no matter how you slice it.

The point of no return is elusive and I can't quite come to grips with it. When did we pass this point?

In medicine during the 1950's when antibiotics like penecillin and tetracycline became available that allowed many to survive that otherwise would have died? In the 1960's with the "Green Revolution" in crop production and advent of public health "Polio-Small Pox-Measles" vaccinations? In the 1970's with climate control & water treatment (groundwater, reverse osmosis, desalination) use migration to exploit otherwise hostile environments such as Phoenix, Las Vegas, Tuczon, Santa Fe and all those prolific desert kingdoms? In the 1980's Eli Lilly's development of "human insulin" from genetically modified organisms? In the 1990's the ability to provide "expert systems" by linking computers together?

All of these things exist and are the result of ability to redirect energy to solve problems with our food, health, science, technology and environment. They are each minor miracles. Miracles we've taken for granted, that will rabidly dissappear during energy withdrawl. I don't know when we passed that point of no return but it was likely a very, very long time ago.

[Ibon]

Past the point of no return?.....hmm since when has biological or cultural evolution ever returned to some past point?

There is some implication that we were somehow sustainable before this point of no return. Were we ever? Even hunter gatherers made large Pleistocene mammals extinct...

I think we have to get away from this whole concept of having gone too far or tipping points etc. In summary, human societies are unfolding as a result of our cultural evolution that are creating scenarios that are not sustainable if we maintain our behavioral patterns, value systems, etc. Forces are coming up due to energy limitations that will steer our cultural evolution in new directions. How it unfolds is highly complex, we cant pinpoint how human societies will react or how they will continue in their cultural evolution beyond making good educated guesses. We don't know if humans will surrender their fate to environmental events that will limit their growth or if they have the intelligence to design energy and living arrangements that will allow them to have some degree of control or management of their numbers and sustainable use of resources. But to imply that we are beyond some point of no return somehow means there is a place we have to get back to.

In forest science there is a new understanding that there never was any real steady state in climax forests, that ecological events, diseases, fires, create constantly new equilibriums that would make up the individual tree species in any succession toward a climax forest but that there is no particular default climax forest in any given habitat. New events create new realities. So it is with our human culture but at an even more complex level. You cant return anywhere, life on an individual or on an ecosystem level is a constant unfolding....there is no going back.

[JoeCoal]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ancien_Opus', 'T')he point of no return is elusive and I can't quite come to grips with it. When did we pass this point? ...1950's?...1990's?...

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JoeCoal', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ancien_Opus', 'T')he point of no return is elusive and I can't quite come to grips with it. When did we pass this point? ...1950's?...1990's?...

[MyOtherID]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', 'W')e don't have decades to wean ourselves.

[rogerhb]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MyOtherID', 'U')ntil someone proves the Lynchian view of peak oil conclusively wrong, this is simply doomer speculation, as is most of the content of this diverting forum.

[MyOtherID]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rogerhb', 'H')owever, my philosophy is it is prudent to be cautious.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bobcousins', ' ')If anyone doesn't think that the phrase "literally overnight" in Monte's initial post is setting up a giant strawman, then [ad hominen deleted]. Monte is a smart man, so knows that literally overnight means a period of 12 hours, which is preposterous. If he meant figuratively overnight, I'm sure he would have written that, but that is a rhetorical measure of time that means whatever you want.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bobcousins', 'P')lease read what I said. Any use of the term overnight, whether literally, figuratively, intentionally or accidently is a strawman, because no one has ever used the term overnight in any sense, when proposing a solution.

Using fuzzy terms 'accidentally on purpose' is just a pointless rhetorical debating trick.