by BigTex » Wed 09 Jul 2008, 23:47:47
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Quinny', 'R')e-awakening to the peak oil problem, I'm rapidly becoming a doomer.
Is there anyone out there who can prove me wrong. I'm hoping I've missed a trick somewhere.
I wish I could prove you wrong but unfortunately the hands of time are a ruthless judge. A system based on the exhaustive use of the resources on this planet will exhaust those resources, one after the other. With the addition of China, the former USSR and India at the table of mass consumption, any one who nurses cornucopian notions is either mad or extremely stupid and probably warrants dying off for being surplus to evolutions requirements.
In a nutshell, capitalism has always experienced a periodic pattern of boom and bust - what economists call the business cycle. Since the late 1700s, the developed world has witnessed such a pattern of rapid growth followed by widespread stagnation or recession. During boom times, profits are running high and the owners of capital are confident to undertake large-scale investment. Existing factories are expanded, new ones built, more workers are taken on, new mines go down as office blocks and hotels go up. Every enterprise is run at close to full capacity as the bosses seize the good times with both hands.
But this process soon creates its own limits. Shortages of raw materials and credit lead to higher prices and interest rates. Profit margins decline as the costs of production rise. We see that today with stagflation.
In a lot of ways, the thesis is so simple it's shocking that so few people know about it, and among those who do know it's surprising that there is so much cornie cognitive dissonance.
The problem, of course, is that the consequences of this simple thesis are so awful for humanity. That's probably what hangs people up a little.
Too many people, not enough earth.