PeakOil is You
The World Before Fossil Fuels
Re: The World Before Fossil Fuels
by MonteQuest » Tue 15 Nov 2005, 23:44:27
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('orz', 'M')icrobiology would be as well established without fossil fuels to sustain the societies that allowed such research?
The microbiology I speak of is the discovery of "germ theory" that told us to "wash our hands."
Would life expectancy have reached the levels of today without fossil fuels? No, but knowing that germs (that you cannot see )can make you sick and to increase personal hygiene requires no energy, other than that used to engage self-discipline.
People would have lived longer and produced more offspring. If they crowded into urnban areas, like in the Bubonic Plague times, then an outbreak of a pandemic would most likely occur.
How many people would the earth have today if we had germ theory and no fossil fuels? No one knows, except that it would be less than now.
Basic biology. Poorer food/energy source.
A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
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MonteQuest - Expert
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Re: The World Before Fossil Fuels
by MonteQuest » Tue 15 Nov 2005, 23:56:02
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', 'I')t can be. Or you can use it like the Easter Islanders or 18th century Europeans, or 19th century Americans, and then it gets depleted.
When the white man landed at Plymouth Rock, a squirrel could jump from tree to tree all the way to the Mississippi. Passenger pigeons were so plentiful that they would cause darkness on a sunny day as they flew by.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'O')ne of the first settlers in Virginia wrote that, `There are wild pigeons in winter beyond number or imagination, myself have seen three or four hours together flocks in the air, so thick that even have they shadowed the sky from us.'
As late as 1854 in Wayne County, New York, a local resident wrote that. `There would be days and days when the air was alive with them, hardly a break occurring in the flocks for half a day at a time.
The birds fed mainly on acorns, chestnuts and beech nuts in the extensive woodlands of North America and so when these were steadily cut down their habitat and food supplies were reduced.
The last known specimens were seen in most states of the eastern United States, in the 1890s, and the passenger pigeon died out in the wild in Ohio about 1900. The last survivor of a species that had once numbered 5 billion died in captivity in 1914.
Naw, we wouldn't have denuded the forests.
A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
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MonteQuest - Expert
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Re: The World Before Fossil Fuels
by MonteQuest » Wed 16 Nov 2005, 00:12:34
I cannot but have empathy for people like orz.
While I find his positions untenable; I can appreciate the passion.
I think he/she might be young and hoping for a bright future. Who wants to hear someone raining on his parade?
The message of reality is harsh, and not easily heard or listened to.
I, too, was once young and hopeful.
Not so young now, but still hopeful. Otherwise, why would I volunteer so much time here? Ego feeding?
No, I wish to make a positive difference. Sorry if reality makes the message negative.
My mindset comes from learning the hard knocks of reality in a finite world.
From one of my writings:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')t the tender age of three, I went to live with my grandparents on a farm in Northwest Missouri; just a stone's throw from the Iowa line. It was there, under the influence of my grandfather, that the ground work was laid for the conservation ethic that has so dominated my life. He was a very frugal man; making do with what he had, and if forced to buy something, it was usually second-hand. This austere life, coupled with his discrete use of insecticides, herbicides, and inorganic fertilizers, made a great impression on me. It was my first lesson in the philosophy...that less is more.
During the peaceful post-war years of the 1950's, life was idyllic for a small boy with 212 acres to roam. I learned to hunt and to fish, milk a cow, drive a tractor, and, as my mother once observed, enjoy being little. I enjoyed hunting a great deal; but in later years, as I grew more aware of the environment, I found that hunting no longer had place in my life. We ate everything we shot in those days; but it was not subsistence hunting—it was sport.
Nature is at her best in the eyes of a small boy. I spent a great deal of time playing down by the "crick" on those lazy, hot summer afternoons of my early childhood; building dams, catching frogs, and remembering the first word from my Dick and Jane book.... Look! I shall never forget that time in my life. It was the best. The freedom I had then as a boy can not be bought anywhere. I will cherish those memories forever.
While I find his positions untenable; I can appreciate the passion.
I think he/she might be young and hoping for a bright future. Who wants to hear someone raining on his parade?
The message of reality is harsh, and not easily heard or listened to.
I, too, was once young and hopeful.
Not so young now, but still hopeful. Otherwise, why would I volunteer so much time here? Ego feeding?
No, I wish to make a positive difference. Sorry if reality makes the message negative.
My mindset comes from learning the hard knocks of reality in a finite world.
From one of my writings:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')t the tender age of three, I went to live with my grandparents on a farm in Northwest Missouri; just a stone's throw from the Iowa line. It was there, under the influence of my grandfather, that the ground work was laid for the conservation ethic that has so dominated my life. He was a very frugal man; making do with what he had, and if forced to buy something, it was usually second-hand. This austere life, coupled with his discrete use of insecticides, herbicides, and inorganic fertilizers, made a great impression on me. It was my first lesson in the philosophy...that less is more.
During the peaceful post-war years of the 1950's, life was idyllic for a small boy with 212 acres to roam. I learned to hunt and to fish, milk a cow, drive a tractor, and, as my mother once observed, enjoy being little. I enjoyed hunting a great deal; but in later years, as I grew more aware of the environment, I found that hunting no longer had place in my life. We ate everything we shot in those days; but it was not subsistence hunting—it was sport.
Nature is at her best in the eyes of a small boy. I spent a great deal of time playing down by the "crick" on those lazy, hot summer afternoons of my early childhood; building dams, catching frogs, and remembering the first word from my Dick and Jane book.... Look! I shall never forget that time in my life. It was the best. The freedom I had then as a boy can not be bought anywhere. I will cherish those memories forever.
Doomer? No, a realist. My views are not biased by anything other than what I see as the facts of reality.
Folks, we are just animals fighting over food.
Last edited by MonteQuest on Wed 16 Nov 2005, 02:05:52, edited 1 time in total.
A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
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MonteQuest - Expert
- Posts: 16593
- Joined: Mon 06 Sep 2004, 03:00:00
- Location: Westboro, MO
).
Should have read:
