[moobradidi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Heineken', 'S')o, Moo, don't you think your techno pipe dream would require unprecedented human collaboration on a global scale?

Nope why? Did the steam engine, or innoculation or antibiotics?
Innovations always get adopted if they work/make money.

If we're going to save ourselves from ourselves, the means of our salvation are already at hand. We simply need to learn to do less with less. Not reinvent the wheel.

True, we have always been our own worst enemies. You believe
we'll change. I can't see it. I can see some labs creating
breakthroughs that cannot be resisted in the long term.

We have a history of using technology to solve problems and
sustain pop levels that were unprecedented even 100 ys
ago. We have no history of global cooperation of the scale
needed for powerdown.

[TheDude]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('moobradidi', 'W')hy would we touch the barrier reef?

[Windmills]

Isn't there a thermodynamic problem with attempting to derive your energy from your own waste?

The waste that our economy produces now is based on cheap energy that will be disappearing. You'll end up having to use more and more of the energy you derive to...what...create waste so you can get energy out of it? This argument is analogous to using waste steam and heat from power plants. Good luck powering a global economy with supposed leftovers. All you do is increase the overall efficiency of the primary process when you use waste for energy.

And trees do require more than just those things. They, like just about every other plant, require fertile soil. If you're taking out everything and returning nothing to the soil, you won't be growing much after a while.

I remember reading some number crunching regarding all the photosynthetic energy available from biomass in the entire United States. I recall the number being quite insufficient to continue anything close to business as usual. Anyone have a quote or link for that?

[Ayame]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('moobradidi', 'R')aising 3rd world standards will eventually stabilise the popn just as infant survival etc in the first world has caused us to have zero pop growth.

[Ferretlover]

Energy from trash?
This sounds like a 'flux capacitor' from "Back to the Future..."

[mark]

moobradidi, you have failed to understand the reality of peak oil. Like so many others you are looking for solutions to the symptom. Let me state this more clearly. Peak oil is a symptom. Over-population is a symptom. Peak everything is a symptom. Those looking for solutions to symptoms are forever chasing rainbows.

[Windmills]

I'd be amazed if anyone attempting to introduce a new technology, especially on such a large and ubiquitous sacle, would comprehensively investigate its impact on the planet in its entirety before implementing it. Instead, cars, power plants, airplanes, and practically every other technological offspring is introduced with the implicit assumption that it has no side effects, no drawbacks, and all of its impacts and ramifications are completely positive.

There has been a history of technological innovation simply as a need to attempt to remedy the negative effects of previous technological innovation.

[namenick]

moobradidi wrote: $this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t will be a crowded and not very pleasant plant- perhaps- but
we will survive.

[namenick]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mark', 'm')oobradidi, you have failed to understand the reality of peak oil. Like so many others you are looking for solutions to the symptom. Let me state this more clearly. Peak oil is a symptom. Over-population is a symptom. Peak everything is a symptom. Those looking for solutions to symptoms are forever chasing rainbows.

[mos6507]

I'm all for techno fixes if we use it as a gift of time to solve our root problem of overpopulation. But we will soon take any hail-mary pass for granted and continue with business as usual, not realizing that we have only delayed the inevitable collapse.

[namenick]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', 'I')'m all for techno fixes if we use it as a gift of time to solve our root problem of overpopulation. But we will soon take any hail-mary pass for granted and continue with business as usual, not realizing that we have only delayed the inevitable collapse.

[kublikhan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Windmills', 'I')sn't there a thermodynamic problem with attempting to derive your energy from your own waste?

[moobradidi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('TheDude', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('moobradidi', 'W')hy would we touch the barrier reef?

[moobradidi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Windmills', 'I')sn't there a thermodynamic problem with attempting to derive your energy from your own waste?

The waste that our economy produces now is based on cheap energy that will be disappearing. You'll end up having to use more and more of the energy you derive to...what...create waste so you can get energy out of it? This argument is analogous to using waste steam and heat from power plants. Good luck powering a global economy with supposed leftovers. All you do is increase the overall efficiency of the primary process when you use waste for energy.

And trees do require more than just those things. They, like just about every other plant, require fertile soil. If you're taking out everything and returning nothing to the soil, you won't be growing much after a while.

I remember reading some number crunching regarding all the photosynthetic energy available from biomass in the entire United States. I recall the number being quite insufficient to continue anything close to business as usual. Anyone have a quote or link for that?

[americandream]

This genie is out of the bottle and isn't going back. Whether the technology will translate to the scope and breadth of application to tackle the current problems and whether it is scaleable are two major hurdles to leap. In addition, whether it will be benign enough to have a risk free application is another. We simply do not know.

However, the ultimate question is whether we are contented with seeing narcissistic capitalism enjoy another period of unassailable supremacy and is the one I suspect plaguing most minds from the responses I have read. I detect a weariness with this system, a sense of disconnect. Consequently, the question of what technology we use to improve the quality of life of our species is not the core issue. That issue really is what sort of system do we believe will deliver us that quality. In the process, we would have to ask ourselves, what do we expect of that system and is it capable of maintaining a modicum of lifestyle quality.

In answering that question, remember every system rises from the foundations of what preceded it. No system stands entirely unblemished from the past. We have only to look at the history of mankind to see this fact.

[moobradidi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', 'T')his genie is out of the bottle and isn't going back. Whether the technology will translate to the scope and breadth of application to tackle the current problems and whether it is scaleable are two major hurdles to leap. In addition, whether it will be benign enough to have a risk free application is another. We simply do not know.

However, the ultimate question is whether we are contented with seeing narcissistic capitalism enjoy another period of unassailable supremacy and is the one I suspect plaguing most minds from the responses I have read. I detect a weariness with this system, a sense of disconnect. Consequently, the question of what technology we use to improve the quality of life of our species is not the core issue. That issue really is what sort of system do we believe will deliver us that quality. In the process, we would have to ask ourselves, what do we expect of that system and is it capable of maintaining a modicum of lifestyle quality.

In answering that question, remember every system rises from the foundations of what preceded it. No system stands entirely unblemished from the past. We have only to look at the history of mankind to see this fact.

[moobradidi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ayame', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('moobradidi', 'R')aising 3rd world standards will eventually stabilise the popn just as infant survival etc in the first world has caused us to have zero pop growth.

[moobradidi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mark', 'm')oobradidi, you have failed to understand the reality of peak oil. Like so many others you are looking for solutions to the symptom. Let me state this more clearly. Peak oil is a symptom. Over-population is a symptom. Peak everything is a symptom. Those looking for solutions to symptoms are forever chasing rainbows.

[moobradidi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Windmills', 'I')'d be amazed if anyone attempting to introduce a new technology, especially on such a large and ubiquitous sacle, would comprehensively investigate its impact on the planet in its entirety before implementing it. Instead, cars, power plants, airplanes, and practically every other technological offspring is introduced with the implicit assumption that it has no side effects, no drawbacks, and all of its impacts and ramifications are completely positive.

There has been a history of technological innovation simply as a need to attempt to remedy the negative effects of previous technological innovation.

[moobradidi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('namenick', 'm')oobradidi wrote: $this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')t will be a crowded and not very pleasant plant- perhaps- but
we will survive.