by ColossalContrarian » Mon 23 Jul 2007, 22:04:43
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MC2', '
')...Luddites...
Learned a new word today, thanks!
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MC2', '
')Technology can and will make a difference. It won't replace oil, and it shouldn't...
What difference do you see technology making? Really, do you advocate technology as a fix because it will supply more energy for humans to waste?
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MC2', '
')Some of you need to read more widely.
You seem to being missing the point. This isn't a technological problem, it's a behavioral problem. We need to learn to live within our means.
Some of us need to think more widely.
by MonteQuest » Tue 24 Jul 2007, 00:19:33
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MC2', ' ') There are major challenges facing people, but the predominant view from many seems to be to retreat to some kind of pre-industrial age. I really suspect many here are Luddites.
No, people wish to pursue sustainability. What that level is, is not determined by anyone, but by nature.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')echnology can and will make a difference. It won't replace oil, and it shouldn't. The population will probably drop off over the next forty years or so, but that's also to be expected, as anyone who's had a basic sociology course should be able to figure out (more advanced societies gradually evolve toward zero or negative population growth).
And as I have pointed out so many times my head hurts, only because of a demographic transition fostered by the advent of fossil fuels and the comcomittant rise in the standard of living...which won't be possible post-peak to continue.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')oomerism is becoming a fundamentalist faith for many, I fear. And you wonder why you have no credibility? Stick to factual issues and open your eyes to possibilities you may not have seen, or those that may yet be developed.
And ad hominem and personal attacks seems to be the only ammo people like you can use in a feeble attempt to discredit and deny reality and the facts.
Science is not a "doomer cult" following.
You cannot debate the merits, so you resort to sand box name-calling like "doomers and Luddites."
How very professional the debate is then.

A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
by HEADER_RACK » Tue 24 Jul 2007, 00:23:34
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MC2', '
')Technology can and will make a difference. It won't replace oil, and it shouldn't...
Technology is not energy. Technology runs on energy. I believe technology is due to a surrplus of energy. More times than not, the more the technology is advanced the more energy it uses. Now you can make it more efficient, but it still uses energy and the energy you don't use becomes a surrplus which gets used to further technology even further. Which puts you right back where you started.
The only way out I see is to use less technology and work backwards.
But who knows for sure?
Nothing is more dangerous than a man with nothing left to lose but has everything left to gain.
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by MonteQuest » Tue 24 Jul 2007, 01:07:46
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('HEADER_RACK', ' ') The only way out I see is to use less technology and work backwards.
Or less complex technology. Or use natural sustainable materials.
Give up our energy slaves.
Build all machines by hand and build them to last.
Abandon automation which gives us speed of production while consuming way more energy than is required.
Slow down and powerdown.
Better quality and better life.
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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by TheDude » Tue 24 Jul 2007, 02:31:23
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Roccland', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')oomerism could become the next big religion -- or at least a fad.
It hath been foretold:
Georgia Guidestones Interesting how the
Our Futures page is blank.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')An eye-level, oblique hole is drilled from the South to the North side of the center, Gnomen stone, so that the North Star is always visible, symbolizing constancy and orientation with the forces of nature.
Great, far-seeing visionaries who don't know about
Precession.
If I were to entertain some typical theological judgment mindset I'd say we've fallen from grace. Only theology that ever grabbed my attention for very long was gnosticism, which says the universe is flawed.
Think I'll have a beer.
by MonteQuest » Tue 24 Jul 2007, 02:39:49
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('I_Like_Plants', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '
')Or less complex technology. Or use natural sustainable materials.
Give up our energy slaves.
Build all machines by hand and build them to last.
Abandon automation which gives us speed of production while consuming way more energy than is required.
Slow down and powerdown.
Better quality and better life.
Truer words were never spoken.
But ones few seem to want to hear.
Perhaps I should expand on those with a thread devoted to it.
I'm only a doomer about an unsustainable future that has no chance.
There is another option that has a bright future. It just requires hard work and hard choices to achieve.
A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
by Mircea » Tue 24 Jul 2007, 08:42:55
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', 'A') [/quoteprudent society would have invested in renewable sustainable systems long ago.
Wrong as usual.
Let me see you generate asphalt and plastic polymer base out of renewable wind, or solar, or nuclear power.
Apparently, you have no clue why things are the way they are.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', 'A')t the same time, we are suggesting making matters worse with talk of electric cars and other techno-fixes to perpetuate an unsustainable lifestyle…a pure construct of overshoot via fossil fuels.
Breeder reactors produce a small quantity of waste product, Plutonium, which just happens to be fuel for breeder reactors. What a win-win situation, where the waste product is acutally fuel for a breeder reactors. No wonder France uses them.
Using breeder reactors, there's fuel for millenium.
Certainly some are concerned about nuclear proliferation, and rightfully so, but that issue is resolved through the use of Integral Fast Reactors. Isn't it wonderful that the dynamically incompetent environmental duo of Clinton/Gore cancelled funding for IFRs?
You'll have nuclear power whether you want it or not, for the simple fact that Proctor & Gamble, and Macy's and McDonald's and Lowe's and Wal-Mart, and Tyson and Purde, and Avon, and DOW Chemicals, and Ford and the GAP don't want you spending $600 a month for electricity when you could be spending $50 a month for electricity and $550 a month purchasing their products. Besides, their lobbyists are expensive, but very effective.
And electric heat is just as effective as natural gas (and less subject to price fluctuations).
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', 'W')e don’t seem to grasp that any measures to avoid a die-off or postpone it, make the die-off that much worse and make it that much harder to reduce the population to a sustainable level by choice.
What "die-off?
{flaming deleted}
A family of 6 lives in my house and they look after my goat, sow and piglets. A retired couple, former teachers lives in the servant's quarters and looks after my cow. A 94-year old women rents the apartment and looks after my geese and chickens. And an ethnic Serb rents the efficiency. I stay in the other efficiency. The cow provides 400-600 gallons of milk a month which provides milk, cream, sour cream, butter, buttermilk, and cheese for free to everyone there. The rest is sold at the market and no the milk isn't homogenized or pasteurized because it doesn't need to be.
The goat provides milk and cheese, the chickens eggs and meat, the geese yummy eggs and the pigs meat. So I have no cherry trees or peach trees, but I do have grapes. So I trade wine for visinata and suica. Big Deal.
So, what "die-off?" We don't use oil. My cousins live in a village of 260 people and no one has a car or telephone. They and a few other villages provide potatoes to some 18 counties, and they use no oil. Not a freaking drop.
So what "die-off?"
The majority of people on this planet in South America, Africa, and Asia live like we live here in Europe. We don't give a damn about peak oil. Sure some African countries use oil, but it's for you, not them. The American employeess are tried for Crimes Against Humanity, they are executed, then a take-over of the coffee, chocoloate, sugar cane and banana plantations occurs and people start growing food crops instead of commerical crops and Africa is once again a net exporter of food, instead of a net importer. And all without oil.
So what "die-off?" Subsistence farmers who don't use oil aren't affected by peak oil.
Spanish conquistadors stood in awe of South/Central American cities because they had never seen cities so large. Cairo in the 10th Century had 6 Million people. You think someone tapped the magic Allah stick 3 times and food fell out of the sky?
No. They farmed for it, without oil, and fed all 6 Million plus the millions in the country-side.
150 Million dead Americans? That's a good thing because it means 14% more resourses for the rest of the world and 12.5% oil for the rest of the world.
There might be a "post-peak die-off" but only in America, not the rest of the world.
Maybe we don't have cars, but I'll bet you don't have any hand-made shirts or shoes. Oil or no oil I'll be drinking and dancing to live music, wearing hand-made shirts tailored just for me and shoes made just for me, and eating all I want.
Will you be doing the same?
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', 'P')eak oil will force people to view the world differently, to a degree almost unimaginable to those who scarcely understand the concept just now.
by EnergyUnlimited » Tue 24 Jul 2007, 09:27:14
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Mircea', '
')Breeder reactors produce a small quantity of waste product, Plutonium, which just happens to be fuel for breeder reactors. What a win-win situation, where the waste product is acutally fuel for a breeder reactors. No wonder France uses them.
Using breeder reactors, there's fuel for millenium.
Civilian breeders are failing to breed.
France does not use them. Their Superphoenix project had failed.
There is a "rescuer" however - thorium cycle worth ~10 000 years of electricity at current consumption level.
At least it is proven technology.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')ertainly some are concerned about nuclear proliferation, and rightfully so, but that issue is resolved through the use of Integral Fast Reactors. Isn't it wonderful that the dynamically incompetent environmental duo of Clinton/Gore cancelled funding for IFRs?
Nothing can be done to stop proliferation, once nuclear reactors are wide spread.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'Y')ou'll have nuclear power whether you want it or not, for the simple fact that Proctor & Gamble, and Macy's and McDonald's and Lowe's and Wal-Mart, and Tyson and Purde, and Avon, and DOW Chemicals, and Ford and the GAP don't want you spending $600 a month for electricity when you could be spending $50 a month for electricity and $550 a month purchasing their products. Besides, their lobbyists are expensive, but very effective.
You will have
limited amounts of nuclear power available for some time.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')nd electric heat is just as effective as natural gas (and less subject to price fluctuations).
by Ibon » Tue 24 Jul 2007, 10:44:23
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', 'G')et very prepared for a war footing.
How should one read that? Preparing oneself as nations resort to resource wars to keep the unsustainable paradigm going or preparing oneself for the war against consumption and the "takeover" paradigm in fighting for a new transformed culture following an ecological sustainable paradigm?
Probably both. Cultural transformation driven by external physical limits set by nature and by man's own devices.
A period of economic collapse aided by shortsided resource wars complimented by natural limits and events like accelerated global warming may provide the suite of forces to break through the entrenchment.
Is the threat of this enough or do we need to play it out?
Patiently awaiting the pathogens. Our resiliency resembles an invasive weed. We are the Kudzu Ape
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website: http://www.mounttotumas.com
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by EnergyUnlimited » Tue 24 Jul 2007, 12:19:31
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', 'G')et very prepared for a war footing.
How should one read that? Preparing oneself as nations resort to resource wars to keep the unsustainable paradigm going or preparing oneself for the war against consumption and the "takeover" paradigm in fighting for a new transformed culture following an ecological sustainable paradigm?
Probably both. Cultural transformation driven by external physical limits set by nature and by man's own devices.
A period of economic collapse aided by shortsided resource wars complimented by natural limits and events like accelerated global warming may provide the suite of forces to break through the entrenchment.
Is the threat of this enough or do we need to play it out?
That will be certainly played out.
It will take a form of combination of dieoff "supported by" multiple chaotic wars destroying everything what was built and ending up in permanent helpless and hopeless mess.