Chris Zell <chrisz...@wetmtv.com> wrote: > > Clearly, these suffering people would benefit from more global warming > solutions. Likewise the growing number of Spanish people now living on the > street. Or the British people who are burning second hand books to keep > warm. >
I doubt they are burning books, but in any case these problems are caused by lack of work and bad government policy, not by lack of money or resources. If the UK were to invest more in alternative energy it would help employ more people and it would lessen this problem, not make it worse. > Nat gas supplies are killing hopes of alternative energy parity and Wall > Street knows it. > I do not think much of Wall Street's wisdom, given the 2008 crash and the fact that not a single industrial corporation has invested in cold fusion. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Edmund Storms <stor...@ix.netcom.com> wrote: > That is true Jed, but the people making the decisions then were not the > ordinary people. The decision makers were generally educated and were the > most informed of the population. > That is true now, as well. Furthermore, people in the past often made dreadful mistakes. See, for example, the book "British Butchers and Bunglers of World War One." > Now the ordinary person with their limited education elects people of > equal ignorance to make decisions, at least in the US. > That has not changed since Colonial times. > Which trends? Yes, mankind in local areas has advanced and in other areas > has regressed. It all depends on where you live. > Life has improved just about everywhere compared to 100 years ago, or 200 years ago. The long term trends are good. > That is true. But as they say, power creates arrogant, God-like power > creates God-like arrogance. > Mankind has never lacked arrogance. If anything, I believe it correlates with ignorance. > Stupid people now have the power to stop civilization in its tracks. > They have always had this power, and they often did stop it in its tracks. See the book I mentioned, "British Butchers . . ." Here is a list of recent accidents caused by stupid people who made simple mistakes that might easily have been prevented: Destruction of the Three Mile Island reactor (1979) Challenger explosion (1986) Hubble telescope mirror shaped wrong (1990) Destruction of the Connecticut Yankee reactor (1997) Intelligence estimates that there were WMD in Iraq (2003) Costa Concordia shipwreck (2011) > * Eliminate fossil fuels and CO2 production, in a generation. > > > You are assuming that CF is accepted and it actually works as expected. > No, fossil fuels could be eliminated even without cold fusion. If we had begun serious efforts in 1980 they would be gone now. > * Reduce other pollution by a factor of 10. > > > Yes, reduced pollution is possible in some areas but not in all. As long > as oil is extracted and transported, it will produce local pollution. As > long as fission power is used, it will create local pollution. These are > obvious predictions you ignore. > I do not ignore them. I said that we can eliminate oil. For transportation we can replace it with synthetic liquid fuel, or hydrogen, which causes little pollution. > However, a lot of "food" is used for industrial purposes to make plastic > and industrial chemicals. Ethanol is one obvious example. > Ethanol is an energy sink. It takes more fossil fuel to make it than you get out of it. It is a gift to OPEC. The technological solutions already exist, even without cold fusion. We > lack only the will and the imagination to use them. > > > Yes, that is EXACTLY my point. The problem is in the human brain. > The human brain has not changed. If we could overcome problems in the past, it stands to reason we can overcome them now. > The problem is not limitations of technology - we are seeing the > limitations of the brain. > Those limitations have not changed. They were overcome in the past and they can be overcome now. People are no better or worse than they ever were. They are not smarter or stupider. Human nature does not change. People are domesticated primates, capable of an unthinkably broad range of behavior. We are noble in reason; infinite in faculty; in apprehension like a god. The paragon of animals! > We have failed to use the fruits of our imagination. We have failed to use > people's talents and skills. > > > Yes, and how can this problem be solved? > By the same methods we solved it in the past. By demonstrating technology, publishing, and persuasion. And by luck. - Jed
