Rob writes: > There is no energy source that can power the lifestyle we live in the US > for more than maybe 50-100 more years. The resources do not exist to > allow "the world" in the broad sense to live the lifestyle we live in > the US/western Europe. We will simply deplete the resources we now have > and our lifestyle will fall into line with that of the rest of the > world. With the rest of the world increasing resource consumption, the > 50-100 years for us is probably optimisitc.
A devout Malthusean, eh? On this point, the conservatives among us generally have it right. Malthus' conclusions haven't come to pass because we really have been able to constantly find new and better ways to feed and fuel our demands. We live better now than we ever have, and yet we're leaving a smaller footprint on the earth than we ever have before on a per capita basis. It's the "per capita" part of the sentence that's the core of the problem. If we can get over the coming bulge in world population, the future on the backside downslope seems relatively bright to me. In the 1970's and 1980's, I taught in both the electrical engineering and biology departments at New Mexico State. By chance, my offices in both departments were within 100 feet of each other, but otherwise they were worlds apart. I was always struck by the differences in attitude that existed in the two sets of students I taught. The biology kids saw a dark and gloomy future, once constrained by an exploding population, a polluted world and diminishing resources, while the EE kids saw a future of unlimited possibilities, of going to the stars, a future painted in glowing tones of silver and gold. Neither vision was completely correct of course. In the end, I eventually decided that each group's vision of the future was more than anything else merely a personal extension of their own immediate job prospects, and not much more. A far more accurate assessment of the future would have amalgated both points of view into one coherent philosophy. The problem is that the two groups rarely talk to one another. As an engineer myself, I tend to have a lot of faith in our future. I do believe that we will work through most of our problems with some ease and grace. And as a biologist, I tend to believe the perhaps startling conclusion that wealthy, urbanized, well-educated populations are the only real hope for maintaining the biodiversity on the planet. Impoverished populations take a terrible toll on the environment as they grow, either as they did in East Germany when they were under Communist rule or as they do in Africa now. In that regard, I've been meaning to mention to the list for some time now that Paul MacCready should be invited to be a speaker at the ESA meetings. MacCready is the aeronautical engineer who built the two human-powered aircraft, the Gossamer Condor and Gossamer Albatross, that first won the Kramer prizes for man-powered flight and then man-powered flight across the English Channel. But more than that, he built the solar powered car, the Sunraycer, that ran the length of Australia, consuming nothing but sunlight, an infinite mile per gallon car. A movie of Paul's, "Doing More with Less," is available here: http://67.41.4.238/lectures/niac05/niac05-maccready/DoingMore.mpg [The movie is best watched in Windows Media Player, but it's a big download (69 MB). You may find it best to start the movie and then pause it while it downloads. Otherwise, your player may start and stop often as it catches up.] While some of the designs featured in the movie may seem completely impractical, don't look at them that way. They should be viewed as engineering demonstrations of what can be accomplished. Paul argues that with the coming new materials, particularly nanotubes and better batteries, stronger, lighter, virtually non-polluting cars which will get 500 to 1000 mpg will become common. I've spoken to Paul about possiblity giving a talk to a group like the ESA and he was quite receptive to the idea. He has a great deal to say on the subject, and he's certainly someone worth listening to. His contact information is: Paul B. MacCready, Ph.D. Chairman of the Board AeroVironment Inc. 825 S. Myrtle Avenue Monrovia, CA 91016 (626) 357-9983 ext. 205 (626) 359-9628 fax [EMAIL PROTECTED] An abbreviated version of one of his quotes, which I found really amusing, is: "If you want to move mountains, you just go move mountains. If you don't have a big enough shovel, you get some friends to help you. If you have the enthusiasm to charge ahead, you can do all sorts of things. Some things you can't do. You can't invent a perpetual motion machine. You've got to select your targets. But people can do so much more than they realize... I alternate between pessimism and optimism, and I've found the best pessimism summary comes from the great philosopher, Woody Allen, who said, 'Civilization is at a crossroads. One road leads to misery and devastation, the other to total destruction. We must choose wisely.' And there is a lot more to that statement than you might think." Wirt Atmar
