The energy "horse" is far from dead, despite lengthy discussions. It appears to me that there is a team of them, all pulling in different directions, apocalyptically, hence my apoplexy. I will, however, try to control it here.
In ecosystems, energy flows, eh? The "search" for equilibrium never ends, but peaks and valleys, booms and busts, sooner or later must reconcile. A truly intelligent species will focus on that reconciliation. A truly stupid one will pay the price for its inattentiveness to reality and its obsession with fantasy, no? Is there such a thing as a crucial distinction between needs and demands? I think so. Is there a crucial distinction between perceivers of reality and the fog of self-deception? I think so. Is there a crucial distinction between the "background" fluctuations as energy flows through systems, the background "noise" on the graph of reality (that over which "we" have no "control") and the peaks that have been peeking above that background noise, increasingly, in recent decades? Even if some ancient epoch was "hotter" or "colder" than this one or some projection, can the fatal fluctuations be said to be inevitable and that "our" activity has no bearing whatsoever (or to a significant level, even a "catastrophic" level) upon the future course of those fluctuations? Of the array of "choices" that have been suggested, how should they, upon what basis or bases, should they, be ranked? Where do wind generators, nuclear, coal, wood, and all the rest, rest upon the scale of priorities? Which are the most cost- and net energy-effective--for now, for various transitional periods as cumulative interactions change the calculations, and for a dynamically stable future that constitutes any future at all? And, have we neglected to think of any alternatives that might be too subtle to have been caught by our intellectual radar? Will "we" soon tire of this discussion, as we have countless others, and exhausted, curl into a fetal position in boredom and frustration? Or will we merely save yet more beer cans and recycle more Christmas trees, as it were, confident that we have done our part? WT "Nature has shrugged off countless species in the history of the earth--and she will one day shrug off Homo sapiens sapiens with no more concern than she has with any of the others. And, the sooner she does so, the sooner the earth can get back to normal." --Louis B. Ziegler
