Ken Hanly wrote:
> There are tons ( ;) ) of coal reserves
No, there are not. You are wrong, and please don't bore me with some
half-understood snippet of USGS deliberate misinformation. Coal will not be
economically recoverable, at present rates of extraction + growth, after
about 2040. I'm happy to discuss this in detail.
>we could expand nuclear power dramatically
No, we could not. Nuclear power, even if it worked, is not a solution and
can never be a substitute for fossil, if only because of *its own*
greenhouse impact. Sustainability cannot be realised by substituting one
form of unsustainable energy for another, especially when the altyernative
is either an energy sink, or more likely a DNA-catastrophe waiting to happen
if not now, in 100 years time when society is no longer capable of
stroing/processing nuclear waste. You have to start from the recognition
that energy-consumption will drop by orders of magnitude, and work out the
consequences of that for a 'full' world, where energy-scarcity will have far
more serious implications than say for the 'half-empty' world of the 1900
house.
>It is highly unlikely that one alternative to fossil fuel
> will be found to
> solve the crisis but this is what you seem to demand.
You haven't found ANY substitutes, not ONE that stands scrutiny.
>There are a
> large number
> of alternatives that collectively may
> help alleviate the crisis.
Such as? Name them.
>Even so I don't see how capitalism
> could even begin
> to solve the crisis without a huge increase in regulation and decrease in
> consumption.
Capitalism cannot by definition do this.
>
> What I find annoying about your posts is your absolute
> certainty about the
> fossil fuel crisis.
And what I find odd is your absolute inability to argue with this, and
absolute inability to accept the given facts nonetheless.
>Of course given a sufficient length of time
> we will run out
> of them but I don't see the problem is all that urgent compared to others,
> including as others have pointed out, global warming.
Without oil US capitalism will collapse. There are no substitutes. There are
no plans, no backups. Nothing. So far the West has managed to avoid the
problem principally by exporting energy-famines elsewhere. That cannot
continue. There is no ceiling to oil prices. There is no limit to the
potential economic damage of energy-crises. Of course it is true that
energy-crises are as much symptom as cause of deep anbd longstanding
systemic disequilibria. But this is only another way of sayiong that world
capitalism is already deep into a historical impasse from which it has no
exit.
>You do not
> talk much about
> distributive issues. Surely an argument could be made that distribution of
> resources that results in many of the worlds population slowly
> starving to death
> in abject poverty is as significant a crisis as global warming or
> the energy
> crisis.
Redistribution is not a problem for the people who count, namely the
citizens of EuroAmerica and the elites. One dollar = one vote, remember. I
write a great deal about the agonising fate of the multibillioned masses
living in abject poverty, altho not on pen-l. But in this debate, that is
not the principal issue. It is a red-herring, as I've said before.
Lachrymose handwringing about 'surplus population' is the liberals'
mirror-inverse of racism about immigration; both stances are principally
acts of denial, of inability to acknowledge and face up to the core problem.
> Your response to fossil fuel alternatives is to say that they are not.
> Period. End of discussion.
I'm happy to discuss it. I have answered your ideas about alternatives,
renewable etc. Prove me wrong, I'm waiting. NAME the alternatives, SHOW how
they'll be viable. There are plenty who think it'll all be OK on the day:
check out Amory Lovins for eg. There are hot discussions about geothermal,
PV's etc. The jury is out on some of these technical issues. But history is
not waiting for answers. Civilisations do tend to enter critical situations
and to find no solutions radical enough to sustain living standars or life
at all for many. Libraries do burn. Rome did fall.
> scientists are divided and
> many claim
> that one can just not make any strong knowledg claims
Which scientists? What claims? Cut to the chase.
Mark Jones
