[Bas]

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edit: I don't seem to be able to embed this thing, so here's the link


great interview (in English) with Rifkin about the coming economic crisis and environmental crisis. He argues among other things that 147$ oil was the main causo of the collapse of cheap credit and that among other things the "elitist" sources of energy like gas, oil, and coal are now on "lifesupport".

[dinopello]

I need some of the stuff Sulu gets after that!

Although, not much of an "interview". Where were the questions ? I'd like to see Rifkin debate Inhofe.

[Bas]

ehh yeah you're right, it's not really an interview, I don't hear anyone asking questions, or maybe they've been cut out...
Jeremy Rifkin wiki

[PrestonSturges]

Rifkin is still alive?

Still, I give him credit for spawning a lot of professional alarmist imitators.

Good thing he did an interview - he is an appalling writer.,

[mcgowanjm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', 'R')ifkin is still alive?

Still, I give him credit for spawning a lot of professional alarmist imitators.

Good thing he did an interview - he is an appalling writer.,

[frankthetank]

Rifkin had a book on the Hydrogen economy... i don't see that going anywhere. Looks to be a very well connected dude.

[hillsidedigger]

I think that several who post here and a few on some other boards I read sense the coming crisis which I guess is 2 to 3 years away at the most.

[killJOY]

This guy is brilliant.

But he forgot a coupla things:

1. Population growth.

2. Food issues.

He sounds like a "Hail Mary Cornucopian."

(I made that up.)

Would that he were right.

I detect that he is well aware that he's asking for the impossible.

His "sustainable" high-tech "third industrial revolution" is possible--with, maybe, 2 billion people.

Goddess help us.

[oowolf]

Rifkin's "Entropy", which was published 30 years ago, was one of the few books out at the time that convinced me my species was headed for disaster. Barry Commoner's "Poverty of Power", from the late "70's, was my introduction to Hubbert's peak, although the term "peak oil" was not used.
There has been plenty of information available for decades for those who "have ears to hear".
I'm sorry to say I don't give a rat'sass for consumeroid zombies in psychotic denial. I cut my ties with most of humanity long ago--not out of hatred--really--more in the way one puts a lost love out of one's mind to avoid the emotional pain of remembrance.

C'est la vie.

[leaflight]

living in bliss miss crisis coming here is a example:


In tsunami land in Indonesia in , up to three days before the event animals wild and domesticated started heading to higher ground, some reported even to have broke their ropes in barns to get away.

The rat racing rich and poor ignored it for sure, well at least a lot of them ignored the animals showing warning signs something big was coming with their heading to higher ground.

[Revi]

I wasn't surprised at anything he said in the interview. I thought it was a very realistic look at the world.

We are experiencing climate change at a rate faster than predicted.

The problem is that everyone is being told that everything is fine.

I'm sure there were people telling people that everything is fine on the Titanic too.

[Bas]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('frankthetank', 'R')ifkin had a book on the Hydrogen economy... i don't see that going anywhere. Looks to be a very well connected dude.

[Ludi]

http://www.foet.org/JeremyRifkin.htm

[bratticus]

Excerpt from the lecture ("interview") posted above:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '.')..the second assumption of globalization -- cheap energy -- so take your capital to cheap labor markets in Asia ... let them produce the food and the manufactured goods and then ship it back because energy is cheap. The problem is that when oil went over $50/barrel something interesting happened. Inflation started to rear up in front of food prices to petrol. When oil hit $147/barrel July 2008 that's when the crisis hit. You'll recall the entire economic engine of globalization collapsed in July at $147/barrel because inflation was so high all the people stopped purchasing. Then the crisis hit 60 days later because you couldn't maintain that delusionary, credit-based debt culture. When the engine stops, then the financial markets collapse sixty days later--they're connected...

[Bas]

exactly Bratticus, and that's from one of the most well connected persons trans-Atlantic.

[evilgenius]

As far as distributed energy goes there is one thing missing. He failed to mention the need for superconductivity along transmission lines so that resistance does not take the energy you need before you can use it. If this nut can be cracked then energy can be set up like the internet, with great connections from node to node like WAN's (Wide Area Networks) do today with information.

Funny this would come up because I was just talking about this last night at a get together. We were talking about what things might work in a short period of time to make a real start, maybe head doom off. I voted for wave energy because it is 24/7, close to most people (most people live near a coast), and close to water to electrolyze hydrogen. It would be a stepping stone to a changeout of the energy grid, the kind of thing that has to happen if we are going to have distributed power. To make power at the coasts will require a grid that can transport electricity either through a more efficient, possibly superconducting infrastructure, as well as a hydrogen transport structure that is capable of meeting demand.

I reason that distributed energy will also face resource restrictions. Whatever material that turns out to work, gallium, etc..., is bound to be rare. The WAN equivalents would therefore be the priority for buildout rather than the lines direct to people's houses. Who knows, perhaps this will lead to another area where the grid will model the internet, faster movement of energy in one direction as opposed to another - like faster downloading than uploading. Maybe we can make a system where we can power our homes and cars from energy derived in far flung places as well as locally where the energy drain from resistance is minimal because it only exists in the last mile to the home.

I wonder if anybody has costed this?