"Let's stop crying about the problems and get to work," Ernie Rogers says. It's easy to agree, but we should leave Ernie and other technologists to get to work on green technology, while others of us get to work in explicating, for publics and polities, the fundamental conflict between increasing production and consumption of goods and services and environmental protection. And a certain amount of "crying," as it may be portrayed, is necessary to get voters and politicians motivated.
Cheers, Brian Czech, Ph.D., President Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy SIGN THE POSITION on economic growth at: www.steadystate.org/PositiononEG.html . EMAIL RESPONSE PROBLEMS? Use [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I was impressed by the clarity of Wayne Tyson's statement of the question. The question does deserve an answer. I am quite sure I can refute the points made by Monbiot. My chosen work is to deal with the energy problem, looking for solutions. The problem here is whether I should devote the time required to make a proper reply, or if I should focus on finding solutions. If you will forgive me, for now I will just offer a general criticism that applies to most papers like Monbiot's. These writers usually focus on the problems and don't think through the opportunities. For example, inevitably there is a cry about the amount of farmland and fresh water that must be redir ected to biofuel crops. The answer to this is simple-- I agree, we should not detract from food needs to grow fuels. But, is that an essential part of biofuel production? Do we need fresh water, wouldn't deep ocean water, rich in phosphorus and nitrogen, be a much better source? Would cyanobacteria provide a better biofuel "crop," in which case there may not be a competition for farmland? Lastly, are we sure that a suitable fermentation process can't provide both useful food and fuel at the same time? I am distressed by the almost constant clamor that the U.S. will need "x percent more energy" by some future date. This is simply ignoring part of the solution. We can live very well with much less energy, as other advanced countries have already demonstrated. And, if we put our shoulders behind finding better technology, we can live very well indeed. As an example, I just finished a calculation, defining a new transportation vehicle that is able to travel (in air) at 200 mph carrying 8 passengers and with a fuel economy of 113 miles per gallon. That's five times more efficient than today's best transportation system (the Greyhound bus at 160 passenger-miles per gallon). With a well-developed "bus system" using this new vehicle, U.S. transportation requirements could be met with about one-tenth of current fuel needs, all supplied very nicely by biofuels. Let's stop crying about the problems and get to work. I get depressed when I read about foolish men tearing up precious ecosystems to make fuel. THE GREATEST DANGER TO EARTH'S DIVERSITY IS GLOBAL WARMING. We must stop burning fossil carbon! Ernie Rogers >> Is there anyone on this list who can refute the >> essential points made in this article? > > I don't think so. It's a question of quantity. Even > if we devote large amounts of cropland to ethanol > crops (substantially reducing food production in the > process), there's no way to replace > soon-to-be-dwindling oil supplies even as demand keeps > increasing. The "hard science" can be found in > countless posts at www.theoildrum.com and elsewhere. > We need to stop worrying about global warming and start figuring out how we will cope with an economic collapse driven by the inability of fuel supply to keep up with demand. The subsequent demand destruction won't solve the problem either, because falling demand will be chasing falling supply levels. JG ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.
