James Lovelock: "Enjoy life while you can, because 80% of people will be wiped out by 2100"

[muriel_volestrangler]

Lovelock believes global warming is now irreversible, and that nothing can prevent large parts of the planet becoming too hot to inhabit, or sinking underwater, resulting in mass migration, famine and epidemics. Britain is going to become a lifeboat for refugees from mainland Europe, so instead of wasting our time on wind turbines we need to start planning how to survive. To Lovelock, the logic is clear. The sustainability brigade are insane to think we can save ourselves by going back to nature; our only chance of survival will come not from less technology, but more.

Nuclear power, he argues, can solve our energy problem - the bigger challenge will be food. "Maybe they'll synthesise food. I don't know. Synthesising food is not some mad visionary idea; you can buy it in Tesco's, in the form of Quorn. It's not that good, but people buy it. You can live on it." But he fears we won't invent the necessary technologies in time, and expects "about 80%" of the world's population to be wiped out by 2100. Prophets have been foretelling Armageddon since time began, he says. "But this is the real thing."
...
At moments I wonder about Lovelock's credentials as a prophet. Sometimes he seems less clear-eyed with scientific vision than disposed to see the version of the future his prejudices are looking for. A socialist as a young man, he now favours market forces, and it's not clear whether his politics are the child or the father of his science. His hostility to renewable energy, for example, gets expressed in strikingly Eurosceptic terms of irritation with subsidies and bureaucrats. But then, when he talks about the Earth - or Gaia - it is in the purest scientific terms all.
...
What would Lovelock do now, I ask, if he were me? He smiles and says: "Enjoy life while you can. Because if you're lucky it's going to be 20 years before it hits the fan."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2008/mar/01/scienceofclimatechange.climatechange

Harsh. But he has a reasonable track record of prediction, so it's worth considering what he thinks.

[groovedaddy]

1. And hope for the future was sounding so good! My bubble has been popped! n.t

[phantom power]

2. I'm going to go enjoy a beer!

Oh, wait.

:puke:

[kristopher]

3. Here is his "reasonable track record of prediction" fm sourcewatch

Lovelock's past mistakes

CFCs and the Ozone Layer

Lovelock was one of the pioneering scientists who analysed the concentrations of the controversial chemicals chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in Antarctica. These man-made chemicals were found to be responsible for causing the hole in the ozone layer, particularly over Polar regions.

In 1973 Lovelock published the results of his work on CFCs in the scientific journal Nature. He concluded about CFCs that "the presence of these compounds constitutes no conceivable hazard". He was totally wrong, a fact that still causes him great embarrassment. In his autobiography Homage to Gaia he describes the mistake as a 'gratuitous blunder'.<1><2>

Later in the book, he also acknowledges that he appeared in a 1974 US Congressional Hearing on the future of CFCs as 'the principle witness for the industry's defence'<3>

Hedgerows

Lovelock also admits in Homage to Gaia that one of the instruments he designed, to monitor the movement of cattle as they grazed, 'led me to participate in the removal of hedgerows - one of the most destructive changes that happened to the English Countryside after the Second World War. I regret to say I played a small part in this act of national ecocide I loved the English country scene passionately, yet I was as thoughtlessly responsible for its destruction as was a greedy shareholder of an agribusiness firm, or a landowner out to maximize the return from his broad hectares."<4>

He explains: 'What we were doing at the Grassland Research Institute was providing essential information to the civil servants of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and the farmers. They then used this to plan their campaign to replace the old English countryside with an efficient agribusiness operation The scientists, the farmers, the agribusiness men, and, most important, the civil servants who drafted the legislation that gave grants to farmers to take out their hedges, all of us were ignorant of the consequences. I am ashamed and now regard myself as part of the unconscious vandalism that has all but destroyed the beauty of my countryside'<5>

Chernobyl

Lovelock denies that Chernobyl has caused massive human health impacts. He maintains a position that there were only 45 deaths. According to Westminster Hansard:

John Barrett : In the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) asked Professor Lovelock about deaths following Chernobyl. Professor Lovelock said that be believed that 45 deaths were attributable to Chernobyl. My hon. Friend asked whether he was aware of the figures suggesting that between 25,000 and 85,000 deaths were associated with Chernobyl. John Robertson : What was his answer? John Barrett : The evidence from the World Health Organisation was that there were tens of thousands of deaths, and when Professor Lovelock was asked whether he would stick to 45 he said yes. I was in a cancer hospital in Ukraine 10 years after Chernobyl and it was full of 10-year-old children who were suffering as a direct result of Chernobyl. The doctors confirmed that. There were more than 45 people in that one ward and I do not believe Professor Lovelock's figure.

Yet see the Chernobyl information website which includes the info that; There is a consensus that at least 1800 children and adolescents in the most severely contaminated areas of Belarus have contracted cancer of the thyroid because of the reactor disaster. It is feared that the number of thyroid cancer cases among people who were children and adolescents when the accident happened will reach 8000 in the coming decades. This figure is given in the UNDP-Report 2002. The German specialist in radiation medicine and Chernobyl expert, Professor Edmund Lengfelder of the Otto Hug Strahleninstitut in Munich, which has been running a thyroid centre in Belarus since 1991, warns of up to 100 000 additional cases of thyroid cancer in all age groups.

A recent report by leading scientists and researchers commissioned by European parliamentary groups, Greenpeace International and medical foundations in Britain, Germany, Ukraine, Scandinavia and other countries suggests that the number of casualties may have bee far higher:

"At least 500,000 people - perhaps more - have already died out of the 2 million people who were officially classed as victims of Chernobyl in Ukraine". <6>


Long-term Supporter for Nuclear Power

Lovelock hit the headlines on 24 May 2004 when he declared in The Independent: 'I am a Green and I entreat my friends in the movement to drop their wrongheaded objection to nuclear energy.' Lovelock's comments were widely reported in other media and consequently used by the pro-nuclear lobby to support their push for new nuclear power stations in the UK.<7>

Lovelock originally offered a draft of this article to Resurgence Magazine which said it would only run it if an anti-nuclear article could be run alongside. Lovelock refused and was told to take it elsewhere.

Contrary to the 2004 media coverage, Lovelock has long been an advocate of nuclear power - he has been on record as a supporter of nuclear power for 20 years.

Happy to Store Nuclear Waste in His Garden Shed

In May 1984, Lovelock was interviewed by the freelance writer, John May, who recalls on his blog how "I went to interview him on 1 May 1984 to conduct a taped interview (which has yet to be published).

According to May: "We start talking about nuclear energy. Surprisingly he is an advocate. He likens his passion to that of being a heretic. Chances of accident equivalent of airliner landing on his house. Willing to store suitcase-sized chunk of nuclear waste produced by large power station for a year, in a shed in his garden, use the heat it gives off. Happy to have his grandchildren stand by it. Happy to live near Windscale". Says of Hiroshima that "death rates of survivors from cancer lower than comparable populations. Deaths from radiation exposure need to be put in proportion compared with tobacoo etc. Far greater threat from CO2 build-up".<8>

Nuclear is Normal

In his 1988 book The Ages of Gaia, Lovelock states: 'I have never regarded nuclear radiation or nuclear power as anything other than a normal and inevitable part of the environment.'

In Homage to Gaia, he states that in 1993 'the Japanese Atomic Industrial Forum invited me to present a paper at their meeting in Yokahoma. I was glad to have a chance to express in public my strong support for nuclear energy'.<9>

He also writes of the 'beneficence of nuclear power' and attacks the Green movement as a 'global over-anxious mother figure who is so concerned about small risks that she ignores the real dangers that loom. As in the biblical fable, we strain at the gnats of Chenobyl, and swallow the camel of massive pollution by our carbon-burning civilisation'.<10>

Of the October 1957 reactor fire at Windscale - the world's first serious reactor incident - he says: 'This incident exposed the people of England to what some would now consider a dangerous level of radioactive contamination. I wonder why we have heard nothing of an epidemic of thyroid and other cancers over the years that followed?'.<11>

Nuclear is Safe

In an article for Readers Digest in March 2005, he writes: 'Nuclear energy is safe, clean and effective The Green idea that renewable energy can fill the gap left by retired nuclear power stations - and also meet the constantly rising demand for power - is romantic nonsense. Wind farms are monstrously inefficient and still need fossil-fuel back-up for the three days in four when the wind doesn't blow. Solar energy is a ridiculous dream for northern Europe. Energy on a large scale from waves and tidal currents is far off'.<12>

Dangers of Nuclear are "Imaginary"

Writing in The Daily Telegraph in 2001, Lovelock commented about the "imaginary dangers of nuclear power". He added in the article "If permitted, I would happily store high-level waste on my own land and use the heat from it to warm my home". In the same article he added, bizarrely: "I have wondered if the small volumes of nuclear waste from power production should be stored in tropical forests and other habitats in need of a reliable guardian against their destruction by greedy developers."<13>

Links to the nuclear industry

Contrary to public percetion Lovelock has long-standing ties to the nuclear industry and its supporters. is maintained by Bruno Comby and hosted by the Environmentalists For Nuclear Energy. It states: 'James Lovelock is in favor of the use of clean nuclear energy' and 'he supports the Association of Environmentalists For Nuclear Energy.' It describes him and Comby as 'friends'.<14>

Lovelock wrote the foreword for Comby's book Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy (which was reproduced in The Independent).<15>

He is a Patron of Supporters of Nuclear Energy, whose Secretary is Sir Bernard Ingham.<16>

He was also awarded a medal by the nuclear power company British Energy in November 2006, "in recognition of his major contributions to the fields of medicine, biology, instrument science, and geophysiology".<17>

Links to big business

Lovelock started working for Shell in 1963, having regular monthly meetings with the Shell boss Lord Rothschild. He states in Homage to Gaia: 'My experiences with Shell left me firmly with the impression that they are neither stupid nor villains. On the contrary I know of no other human agency that plans as far ahead or considers the environment more closely'.<18>

Links to the security services

Homage to Gaia describes how, in 1961, Lovelock went to work at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratories in Houston, as part of a team working on the first lunar mission.

It also reveals that in 1965 he met with CIA officers in Washington to discuss new ways of detecting people hiding in dense tropical forests, using electron capture technology. Lovelock describes how he also met with an unnamed General at the Pentagon and scientists at the Advanced Research Projects Agency (now known as DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, this is a US Department for Defence research organisation). All three agencies appeared disinterested in his proposals, but 'I now know that the CIA and other American agencies did not make use of my idea until years later,' he writes.

One his return to London he discussed his experiences of the US security services with Lord Rothschild, at one of their monthly meetings. Rothschild - 'it was rumoured that he had worked with the security services during the Second World War' - gave him a phone number and consequently two scientists from the UK's Atomic Weapons Research Establishment came to see Lovelock.

Subsequently, he was invited to go and present his ideas at a meeting in Century House, which was then home to MI6 - though Lovelock does not make this clear. The spooks' 'real interest was in the KGB and its agents in London and other cities', he states. A week later, Lovelock demonstrated his invention in the New Forest to a man called 'Colin Place'.<19>

Later, he was invited to Leconsfield House in Curzon Street, which then housed MI5 (again, Lovelock glosses over this fact) and was offered a lab at Holton Heath, a defence research establishment in Dorset. He writes that his work had a "high classification'. He also notes: 'The potential for chemical tracing was considerable and soon the security services decided to build a proper new laboratory at Holton Heath specifically for this need'. He concludes: 'During my years with the Security Services I developed an instinct for discretion. This was invaluable in my work with multinational companies and other government agencies, where I discovered much more about their workings than I needed to know.<20> <21>

Links to anti-Greens

Lovelock was also one of the original signatories of the 'Declaration in Support of Protecting Nature With High-yield Farming and Forestry.' Other signatories are Patrick Moore, the ex-Greenpeace founder and now Greenpeace's bete noir, who runs an anti-environmantal PR company called Greenspirit Strategies, Dennis Avery of the Centre for Global Food Issues which is part of to the right-wing Hudson Institute and Eugene Lapointe one of the leaders of the international 'Wise Use Movement' and World Conservation Trust Foundation /IWMC World Conservation Trust and Norman Boulag, a rabidly pro-GM scientist.<22>

Dennis Avery is one of the main people behind many of the attacks on organic food and author of the inspirationally-titled Saving the Planet with Pesticides and Plastic: The Environmental Triumph of High-Yield Farming. Avery sees himself as a missionary, promoting the high-tech farming industries: pesticides, irradiation, factory farming, and the newcomer: biotechnology.<23><24>

Avery is behind misleading claims that organic food is dangerous and is the originator of the 'E. Coli myth' - that people eating organic foods are at a significantly higher risk of food poisoning. He calls organic food a 'gigantic marketing lie'.<24>

Eugene Lapointe runs the organisation the International Wildlife Management Consortium, a coalition of international hunting, shooting, whaling, right-wing and wise use organisations.<25>

Other signatories include Bruce Ames, the controversial cancer scientist on the board of climate-sceptic Fred Singer's SEPP and a Director of the George C Marshall Institute and academic advisor to the Reason Foundation, and Klaus Amman, a vehemently pro-GM scientist.<26>

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=James_Lovelock

Quite a reasonable record...

[provis99]

6. the ass actually said Hiroshima survivors had lower cancer rates?

What an ass. A complete ass. Ass, ass, ass, ass, ass.

[NNadir]

20. And the cancer rates associated with the fires in Kuwait, the fire bombing of Tokyo and Dresden are

what?

You don't know and you don't care?

Any particular reason for that?

[jpak]

22. Hiroshima radiation victims apologists

do wonders ever cease???

[kristopher]

23. You crack me up

Every time I read one of your pointless posts an image of Marvin the depressed robot from The Hitchhiker's Guide comes leaping to mind.

If you're familiar with the text you'll know that Marvin's huge intellect is never actually revealed there either...

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. I've sensed there will be a mass exodus from Planet Earth

by many souls and in the near future. Whether I am one of them or not depends upon many factors, one of which is my willingness to help change things.

I am very glad now that I chose not to have children.

[lynnertic]

7. .

:hug:

[jpak]

10. He's a wonderful spokesperson (raving nutcase) for the nuclear industry - lol

Furthermore, if his Gaia hypothesis was correct, positive biotic feedbacks would emerge to cool the Earth - they don't exist - all the abiotic and biotic feedbacks are positive and will accelerate global warming.

[OKIsItJustMe]

25. I'm afraid you misunderstand the Gaia hypothesis

You've fallen for the new-age version.

[jpak]

28. No I have not

The American Geophysical Society dedicated two Chapman Conferences to the examination of the Gaia Hypothesis - the evidence supporting Lovelock's hypothesis was found to be scant to none.

The central tenet of the Gaia hypothesis is negative biotic feedbacks responding to changes in the Earth's biogeochemistry and climate - those were his own words, not the new-age version.

[OKIsItJustMe]

36. Um...

I will take it that you haven't read his book.

The Wikipedia entry on the Gaia hypothesis offers a fair summary:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis

The Gaia hypothesis is an ecological hypothesis that proposes that living and nonliving parts of the earth are a complex interacting system that can be thought of as a single organism. Named after the Greek earth goddess, this hypothesis postulates that all living things have a regulatory effect on the Earth's environment that promotes life overall.

...

Gaia is a metaphor.

Lovelock proposes a complex system of positive and negative feedbacks. He does not suggest that the system is capable of quickly ramping up, to take care of something like our production of "Greenhouse Gases." (On the other hand, he notes that the ecosystem did a remarkably good job of dealing with it for several years.)

However, the system can be over-stressed.

Let's use the Gaia analogy for a moment. Your body is a complex system using both positive and negative feedbacks to maintain things like body heat, concentrations of CO₂ and O₂ in the bloodstream... (right?) Most of this is totally automatic. Your body's ability to deal with various stresses is incredible.

Now, can your body be put under such stress that its automatic systems cannot maintain normal body temperatures? or normal blood gas concentrations? Of course!


The way you present the Gaia hypothesis, if Lovelock believed it, he would never believe in "Global Warming" but (to the contrary) he offered cautions about it from the start.

So, while you may not have fallen completely for the "new-age" (strong) Gaia hypothesis, I would say that it has colored your perception of what I call the "real" Gaia hypothesis.

[jpak]

37. I have read his non-peer reviewed book and a homeostatic Earth system requires negative feedbacks

This was the central tenet of his hypothesis - and the Daisy World experiment.

*Real* ecologists rejected the notion that large scale ecosystems behaved as "super-organisms" in the early 20th Century.

The notion that the entire planet is a homeostatic super-organism is nonsense.

And the fact that *all* biotic feedbacks in response to a warming Earth are positive are further grounds to reject the Gaia Hypothesis...

[OKIsItJustMe]

38. Of course, *real* scientists do come to new understandings occasionally

...

*Real* ecologists rejected the notion that large scale ecosystems behaved as "super-organisms" in the early 20th Century.

...

So, scientific thought has not changed in 100 years? For example, in the early 20th century, how popular was the notion of the "greenhouse effect" among "*real* ecologists?"


Lovelock is not alone in his beliefs:

http://www.sciconf.igbp.kva.se/Amsterdam_Declaration.html

The Amsterdam Declaration on Global Change

The scientific communities of four international global change research programmes - the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP), the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) and the international biodiversity programme DIVERSITAS - recognise that, in addition to the threat of significant climate change, there is growing concern over the ever-increasing human modification of other aspects of the global environment and the consequent implications for human well-being. Basic goods and services supplied by the planetary life support system, such as food, water, clean air and an environment conducive to human health, are being affected increasingly by global change.

Research carried out over the past decade under the auspices of the four programmes to address these concerns has shown that:

• The Earth System behaves as a single, self-regulating system comprised of physical, chemical, biological and human components. The interactions and feedbacks between the component parts are complex and exhibit multi-scale temporal and spatial variability. The understanding of the natural dynamics of the Earth System has advanced greatly in recent years and provides a sound basis for evaluating the effects and consequences of human-driven change.
• Human activities are significantly influencing Earth's environment in many ways in addition to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Anthropogenic changes to Earth's land surface, oceans, coasts and atmosphere and to biological diversity, the water cycle and biogeochemical cycles are clearly identifiable beyond natural variability. They are equal to some of the great forces of nature in their extent and impact. Many are accelerating. Global change is real and is happening now.

...

[jpak]

40. There is not one peer-reviewed scientific reference in that statement that supports Gaia

Again, *real* ecologists have found no evidence that ecosystems behave as super-organisms - not in the early or mid 20th century, not ever.

Furthermore, in order to accept the Gaia Hypothesis biologists would have to reject the Theory of Evolution - which is supported *overwhelmingly* by the peer reviewed scientific evidence.

Here's a recent peer reviewed critique of the Gaia Hypothesis in the journal Climate Change...

http://seismo.berkeley.edu/~kirchner/reprints/2002_55_Kirchner_gaia.pdf

Abstract:

Organisms can greatly affect their environments, and the feedback coupling between
organisms and their environments can shape the evolution of both. Beyond these generally accepted
facts, the Gaia hypothesis advances three central propositions: (1) that biologically mediated feedbacks
contribute to environmental homeostasis, (2) that they make the environment more suitable for
life, and (3) that such feedbacks should arise by Darwinian natural selection. These three propositions
do not fare well under close scrutiny. (1) Biologically mediated feedbacks are not intrinsically
homeostatic. Many of the biological mechanisms that affect global climate are destabilizing, and it
is likely that the net effect of biological feedbacks will be to amplify, not dampen, global warming.
(2) Nor do biologically mediated feedbacks necessarily enhance the environment, although it will
often appear as if this were the case, simply because natural selection will favor organisms that do
well in their environments – which means doing well under the conditions that they and their cooccurring
species have created. (3) Finally, Gaian feedbacks can evolve by natural selection, but so
can anti-Gaian feedbacks. Daisyworld models evolve Gaian feedback because they assume that any
trait that improves the environment will also give a reproductive advantage to its carriers (over other
organisms that share the same environment). In the real world, by contrast, natural selection favors
any trait that gives its carriers a reproductive advantage over its non-carriers, whether it improves or
degrades the environment (and thereby benefits or hinders its carriers and non-carriers alike). Thus
Gaian and anti-Gaian feedbacks are both likely to evolve.

<end>

and references therein...

[OKIsItJustMe]

42. Once again, I maintain, you misunderstand the Gaia hypothesis

... in order to accept the Gaia Hypothesis biologists would have to reject the Theory of Evolution ...

That really isn't necessary at all.

http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/sbeder/STS300/controversy/env/artgaia.html

Hands up for the Gaia hypothesis

James E. Lovelock

... Gaia theory is not incompatible with Darwin's great vision; it includes the evolution of the organisms by natural selection as an essential part of a self-regulating planet.

Much of the confusion about Gaia and darwinism comes from the misuse of the concept of adaptation. My friend and colleague Andrew Watson succinctly expressed the step that distinguishes Gaia from darwinism in a debate before the Linnean Society in December 1989. It lies in the tightness of the coupling between the organisms and their physical environment. Watson observed that almost everyone now accepts that life profoundly influences the environment; this is now the conventional wisdom among geochemists, and a considerable change from their view pre-Gaia. It is equally obvious that life is influenced by and adapts to the environment. This is the older wisdom that has prevailed throughout this century. Therefore, as Watson pointed out, life and the environment are a coupled feedback system, where changes in one element will affect the other and this may in turn feed back on the original change. The real debate, then, is how important and how tight is the coupling? Does it, as we believe, confer new properties on the system, such as enhanced stability or behaviour similar to that of a living organism?

...

What of the criticism that Gaia gives support to anti-science? True, Gaia as a name, or a sign, has extended far beyond my intentions. As the semiotician Myrdene Anderson put it several years ago, "Gaia is an empty sign with near infinite capacity for signification". I watch it filling fast, and mostly with rubbish, like an empty skip left on a London street. Surely, though, this is the fate of any new sign and has nothing to do with the quality of the science of Gaia. I have offered 'geophysiology' as an alternative name, but so far there have been few takers.

...

Source: Nature, Vol. 344, 8 March 1990, pp.100-102.

Don't get all tied up in the metaphor!

---

You may want to check out Lovelock's list of papers, many of which are (in fact) published in "peer reviewed" journals:
http://www.jameslovelock.org/page4.html#GEO

[jpak]

43. That is Lovelock's non-peer reviewed opinion. It is not science

neither is the reference to Watson's "debate"...

Lovelock despises the scientific community - and the whole process of modern science - and makes no bones about it.

And geochemists and evolutionary biologists are amused to hear that their views of Earth's biogeochemisty have "changed" post-Gaia. That's a good one...lol...

The Earth science community has thoroughly discredited Lovelock's hypothesis - they literally "took him to school" and "the woodshed" on the subject.

But that's of no consequence to the true believers...

:hi:

[OKIsItJustMe]

44. "true believers" — sounds like an ad hominem

I'm not into Gaiology or anything like that.

I happen to feel that the original "Gaia hypothesis" is a useful metaphor for the "web of life."

Most arguments I've seen against the "Gaia hypothesis" are really against the straw man "new-age" Gaia.

[aquart]

5. That's what I keep telling you all.

But you persist in believing the future will look like the past. Nuh uh.

[Pab Sungenis]

8. I think it's safe to say

that 80% of all people alive right now will be dead in 92 years, yes.

[GliderGuider]

9. That's just a wee bit facile, no?

80% of us will be dead, yes. Problem is, so will 80% of our children, and 80% of their children, and 80% of theirs as well.

In my recent analysis of Africa's food security crisis (http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Africa/Africa.html) I projected that the population of Africa could decline from 930 million today to around 400 million by 2040. "Half a billion deaths?" you say, "Why, that's horrible!" Well yes it is. But the truly horrible part is that the net loss of 500 million people is achieved through the premature deaths of almost twice that many - about 950 million premature deaths due to malnutrition alone.

Reducing the global human population to 1 billion by 2100 would entail about 10 billion premature deaths.

[kristopher]

12. I didn't review your African analysis because it looks like flawed research

You state in the intro it is based on Your analysis of "World Energy to 2050".
Unfortunately, this statement in the intro to that analysis tells us you are disregarding the most fundamental tool available to do that type of analysis, natural resource economics. Maybe it is there later, if so let me know and I'll consider it worth reviewing. However, if you haven't even attempted to integrate the theories behind transitioning from depletable energy resources...

You can't handle that omission simply through a disclaimer. Without it, you simply don't have an analysis.
Is it there?

"The analysis is intended solely to clarify a future scenario based purely on the situation as it now exists and the directions it shows obvious signs of taking. The model is not intended to show the effects of any of the large-scale changes in direction that have been proposed to cope with declining oil and gas supplies or rising CO2 levels. Solar or nuclear power "Manhattan Project" style efforts, for example, are not considered. Treat this scenario as a cautionary tale: given the known resource constraints in energy, this is the likely outcome if we don't take collective action but rather just continue business as usual.

[GliderGuider]

14. My position is that the data on renewables are still too slim to make accurate projections possible

I also think that the global economic collapse that's now in its early stages will change the trajectory of renewable energies (as well as nuclear power) through demand destruction and loss of capital.

My analyses aren't predictions, they're projections. If you disagree with my assumptions, that's fine with me. I do give renewables a fair kick at the can in "Energy to 2050", but my consistent position has been that the decline in oil and natural gas is going to take so much energy out of the system so fast that renewables will not have time to climb the curve. The essential feature of the next 30 years or so will be oil and gas depletion, and my energy analyses are predicated on that.

That said, the major factors driving Africa's situation have surprisingly little to do with energy. They are: population growth, global food price inflation, HIV/AIDS, climate change and rising oil and fertilizer prices. Those effects utterly swamp any contribution solar and wind might make to Africa's energy economy over the next 30 years.

[kristopher]

16. Yes, I can see where you are coming from.

But that type of plotting simply doesn't work. All you are doing is trying to justify the omission.

The fact is that economic theory in area is pretty fundamental; it is basic supply/demand when supply is finite. It functions to give insight into the type of scenarios you are trying to address by defining and accurately predicting the forces you are only assuming. It allows us to fairly easily vary assumptions such as time, demand, and supply.

What I think you've done is to basically encode your expectations and call it an analysis (honestly, no offense intended, but review is by nature harsh). I'm not suggesting your work is wasted, only that you recognize the severe limits of such an inflexible approach and I'm suggesting that you consult with someone well versed in natural resource economics. I know enough to understand and use the stuff but not enough to produce something without a disproportionately great deal of effort so I'm not the person provide you with the best feedback.

[GliderGuider]

19. It is what it is.

The assumptions of that series of interlocking numerical doodles all seem reasonable to me. I've made every effort to go to reputable sources for current data and trends, and I've tried not to put anything in that I couldn't support. They're not intended to be PhD theses, just a look at how things might unfold under a particular set of assumptions. If they say nothing to you, that's OK.

Interestingly, the comment I've gotten back most frequently from the piece on Africa is how conservative all the parameters are. And even with that, the population plot drops like a ruptured duck. When I put in what seem to be more realistic values for things like inflation and the effect of fertilizer prices, the outcome is so horrifying that I don't think most people would be able to accept it.

[kristopher]

21. Unfortunately it takes much more than reputable sources

http://www.paulchefurka.ca/WEAP2/WEAP2.html

This is a document crafted in a manner that totally fails to achieve it's stated goal of being an accurate assessment of energy resources that will be available to us in 2050. It does nothing but paint a nightmare scenario that forms the basis for arguments supporting the claim that nuclear energy looks to be the only viable solution to otherwise inevitable catastrophe.

I will point out a couple of major errors and omissions then drop the matter.

First is the failure to address the effect of price on demand. To provide a single example: while demand curves in the transportation sector are slow to respond to pricing signals, they eventually respond when the price increase is sustained over the period of normal passenger fleet rotation, which is approximately 85% every six years. You erroneously claim that the time required to repopulate this fleet of vehicles is so long as to prohibit a shift to electric drive in a time period that can have a meaningful effect on the outcome your projections.

That error is a fundamental one as the internal combustion engine in our automobiles is only about 12% efficient; meaning that 88% of the gasoline pumped into the tank of your auto is lost to friction and heat, with only 12% going for actual propulsion. The same comparison for battery electric drive gives us better than 95" efficiency, with a full life cycle evaluation yielding various (but all extremely significant) degrees of improvement when compared to IC and fossil fuels.

In the tech sector we have seen the development of Lithium Ion batteries that are incredibly lighter and better performing than lead acid or NICad. For an appreciation of the how significant the relative weight differences are, just look those elements up on the periodic chart. LIon also offers the near term possiblity of both long range and rapid recharge (on an order comparable to refueling with gasoline). These consumer considerations are the primary obstacles to public acceptance of the technology.

Kempton has quantified the total power of the US auto fleet as triple the US electrical generation capacity and 8X the load. The vehicle to grid (V2G) concept is a realistic means of drastically reducing infrastructure costs associated with the transition to wind and an electric vehicle passenger fleet. Since the average car is in use for only a small fraction of the day the storage capacity available with virtually no large scale infrastucture investment is stunning. I'll leave it to you to research the details of the system.

This means that in the relative near term, not only the US but the entire world can realistically expect to reap the huge increase in efficiency associated with the transition to an all electric passenger fleet. It also means that there is a realistic storage mechanism to maximize the energy generated by wind and solar through load matching.

Another area of gross miscalculation is the maximum potential of wind energy to meet world energy demand. We know there is enough acessable wind in high capacity locations (archer et al 2005,2007) to meet present and projected future energy demands many times over. The basis for your chart on wind fails to take into account the cubed increase in the power of wind as larger scale turbines come on line. The effect of this on the replacement of outdated technology on terrestrial sites, as well as the move offshore where the winds are significantly better are not predicted by extrapolation from a generalized charting of installed capacity over the past 30 years. Looking backwards isn't a bad thing, but when you try to drive forward through your rear view mirror you cannot expect anything approaching optimum results.

If you had incorporated pricing into your analysis you'd have seen a direct correlation between the relative cost of wind and solar to coal and the rate of increase in installed capacity. You make no accounting of other events in the past ten years that are unarguably going to exert profound effects on the path to disaster you are so seemingly eagerly to predict.

First of course, are the initiatives to account for carbon costs. This will drive the costs of coal to a sufficiently steeper slope relative to renewables; so much so, in fact, that your projections of world coal consumption are simply not tenable. In place of dealing realistically (that is your goal, right) with the various policy instruments that are being implemented to capture the costs of carbon, you made one mention of improbable efforts at carbon sequestration for coal and then totally ignore the most relevant facet of world efforts to move away from fossil fuels of all types.

I'll stop there. I am sorry to be so blunt in my criticisms on a public forum, but you have put this out there as an authoritative source to support extremely dubious claims related to the future. In that context it simply had to be addressed.
My conclusion is that much of your basic data is fatally flawed because it rests on totally unrealistic or outright false assumptions regarding the state of affairs in the energy field. Your conclusions look to be preselected and the data crafted to match the desired outcome. I don't speak to your motives for this. It is a difficult task and it requires specialized training in analysis with both reasonably deep knowledge over a broad range of issues to properly address the matter.

I strongly urge you to discontinue the use of this as a basis for predicting our future energy use, needs or supply. It is nothing more than scaremongering.

[GliderGuider]

24. Thanks for your comments. Let's take a look at some of them.

We'll start with this one:

"...totally fails to achieve it's stated goal of being an accurate assessment of energy resources that will be available to us in 2050.

In fact the article never claims to be an "accurate" assessment of future energy supplies. Such a goal would be impossible, since no projection can make such a claim -- remember Yogi Berra's dictum, "Predictions are hard, especially about the future." In the opening disclaimer it spells out the fact that this is a scenario. The furthest I go is to claim it describes "the likely outcome if we don't take collective action but rather just continue business as usual". I make no claims for the scenario's accuracy or predictive capability, or for whether we will take collective action.

I likewise never make "the claim that nuclear energy looks to be the only viable solution to otherwise inevitable catastrophe". In fact I explicitly say that nuclear power is unlikely to offer any real hope, due to a peak and decline of nuclear capacity in the 2020 timeframe from "new construction not keeping pace with the decommissioning of old reactors." Any imputation of such hopes for nuclear power is solely your own, as I don't believe for a moment that nuclear power will be a solution. In the article I make it clear that cost constraints, public opposition and a looming bottleneck in uranium supplies will probably act to choke off nuclear development. You are putting words in my mouth.

The biggest mistake you make, though, is in your insistence that the model must reflect supply/demand pricing. Under the primary assumption of the model (Peak Oil) such an analysis is a fool's errand. Peak Oil amounts to an inflection point in the trajectory of civilization. This creates what is in effect a singularity, beyond which derived values like oil prices become literally impossible to predict. As long as the supply does not inflect, tools like the measurement of own-price elasticity of demand can be used to determine demand changes in the presence of gradually changing supply.

Such attempts are futile in the event of Peak Oil, however. Oil is the master resource of our civilization. As a result demand is very inelastic over the short run, and minor disruptions (like the 5% decline in 1973) can create massive price shocks. These price shocks will have severe ripple effects through the global economy as we try to absorb them. Different nations will respond according to their abilities and circumstances. Some will be able to reorganize their economies and absorb the costs, others will stop buying oil, and some may bankrupt themselves out of necessity. We cannot predict the price that affluent nations might be willing to pay for oil under such circumstances, so we really have no way of predicting the degree of demand destruction that would result. I've been reading Peak Oil analyses diligently for three years, and have never seen one that attempts to do this. The reasons for that are abundantly clear. Making an attempt to incorporate pricing effects would introduce more sources of error than it could possibly address. In fact the added uncertainties would render the analysis useless.

About batteries: you're right, I don't include advances in battery technology. The paper assesses the probable trajectory of existing energy supplies. It makes no claims as to how the energy may be used. Certainly electric transportation will assume a larger role in some forms in some places. That's not what this analysis is about, however. It looks purely at energy supplies.

I'm also aware of the massive potential of wind power. However, the analysis is not interested in the ultimate potential of energy sources so much as the ability we are showing to harness them. That's why I used the projections I did for increases in wind capacity - I'm looking at the demonstrated build-out, not the potential resource. I apply precisely the same logic to the assessment of nuclear power.

Your critique rests on a faulty understanding of the purpose of the analysis. You seem to want it to be the one you would have written instead, and are upset that it's not. This is clear to me from your emotional reaction to its main conclusion -- that a decline in global energy supplies implies a decline in industrial capacity and the activity levels of our civilization. Your use of terms like "nightmare scenario" and "scaremongering" make it clear that your objections are not so much procedural as philosophical.

I stand by this analysis, and will assuredly continue to use it as the basis for future investigations unless and until events prove it to be in error.

[kristopher]

26. Your stated goals are clear

"I hope to be able to provide a realistic assessment of the evolution of the global energy supply picture, and to estimate how much of the various types of energy we will have available to us in the coming decades."
If you want to quibble about realistic vs. accurate, feel free. My logic requires accuracy for realism. Perhaps you don't share that pespective.

While it's true that no projection should be expected to achieve perfect accuracy, it is also true that we are not relieved of the obligation to at least try to make the assessment as accurate as possiblle. Franky, I'll concede that you probably did exactly that. What I'm saying is that the effort is so far off the mark in terms of accuracy that is more harmful than helpful. Dramatically more harmful than helpful.

You object to my remarks about your paper and discussion over use of nuclear energy. What I find puzzling is why you would cut my statement in half in order to set up an obvious straw man? What I wrote in full is this "It does nothing but paint a nightmare scenario that forms the basis for arguments supporting the claim that nuclear energy looks to be the only viable solution to otherwise inevitable catastrophe."

It's true you do not push nuclear directly. What you do instead is argue that the problem most significant to nuclear is public opposition (the fuel problem is easy to addresss with breeder reactors). With that you mask the very real external COSTS of waste storage and nuclear proliferation. You also go to the trouble of examining the technologies that may improve nuclear power generation in the near term future. I know a sales pitch when I hear one, it is about providing information that leads to a conclusion; a process that is often framed as besst choice among bad options. Again, I'm not addressing your motives; it is reasonable to conclude that this is what you believe, so that belief shaped your papaer.

Your discussion of the economics involved (especially the claim that it is useless to include) show some basic misunderstanding and faulty premises. First, peak oil is not possible to predict in advance. The stated objective of your paper is to estimate how much energy will be available in 2050. We agree that the raw resources of wind and solar are sufficient to replace petroleum, but that it is a matter of efficient extraction of the resources, right?

The behavior of society is going to be the key to that, agreed?

The way you track the behavior of society when you have a finite declining resource and alternative replacement resources is via economic analysis. By limiting yourself to an analysis founded on past quantities of production for each resource being considered, you totally fail to examine the behavior of society. As the finite resource declines in abundance relative to use, there will be price signals generated that are reacted to by society - we will ramp up production of the alternatives.

Think about this for a minute, instead of examining the behavior of the abundance of the untapped alternative resources relative to predicted future pricing signals, you make a prediction where the solar and wind components are based on a review of the past 30 years worth of response to pricing signals sent by petroleum and coal. The you use the data those pricing signals have generated to extrapolate 42 years into the future.

Back of the envelope analysis: price of oil over that term between what 12-100 a barrel? With the spike occurring only recently? So let's say that for 22 of the thirty past years the price of oil has been around 29 a barrel. Then it starts spiking and an average of the last 8 years is close to 65 a barrel.

If we add in the slow response to petroleum price signals because it is is in the basic infrastructure area, then it is probably safe to say that only 3% - 6% (1-2 years) of the data you used for your forward projections regarding renewables is valid. Are you comfortable with that?

The same type of problem is created by your failing to include policies to capture the COSTS of carbon. I'm going to shout this part: THESE POLICIES ARE CRAFTED SPECIFICALLY TO ALTER THE DEMAND CURVE FOR FOSSIL FUELS. THAT IN TURN ALTERS YOUR CONSUMPTION CURVE WHICH WILL, IN TURN, ALTER THE SLOPE OF THE PRODUCTION CURVE AS IT APPROACHES THE X AXIS.


Here's what I think. You've read some things that scared the beejezuz out of you. Using what you read, you confirmed the analysis that shocked you by essentially duplicating it. Does that mean the original analysis is correct?



Unless you think the owners of oil are going to deliberately suppress the price of oil as supplies dwindle, there is no reason to NOT employ these extremely valuable tools to recalibrate your production curves.

Do you think they are going to artificially depress the price of oil or even coal?

I'll let it go there, but I want to repeat what I said: your "analysis" is nothing but scaremongering and you should discontinue it's use until you learn enough about what natural resource economics can tell us about the ENTIRE energy landscape going into the future.

[kristopher]

27. Let me add something

Append to the end of this section:
ALTER THE SLOPE OF THE PRODUCTION CURVE AS IT APPROACHES THE X AXIS.

In most cases, we never run out of the finite resources being analyzed. Before the point of resource extinction, alternatives/ substitutes are found and made viable by increasing costs.

At this point, what we KNOW about total oil reserves is largely speculative. But we do KNOW concretely that just maintaining levels of production against increasing demand is driving costs up. When the actual level of production begins to decline, then we can expect even more aggressive pricing signals and an even more intense response via efforts to exploit alternatives.
What I'm saying is that IF declining production is part of petroleum resource depletion (a reasonable expectation, no?) then the curve for renewables will become even steeper and substitution will occur even faster.

END

[GliderGuider]

29. I wan't going to reply because we're not getting anywhere.

Then you said, "Before the point of resource extinction, alternatives/ substitutes are found and made viable by increasing costs", and all of a sudden your entire position snapped into focus.

No matter what else you do in life, you're a classical economist at heart aren't you?

Well, in that case you and I will never agree. Any position relating to oil that is underpinned by that particular belief is invalid from the outset. In fact, that belief is part of the problem, not part of the solution. If it has infected your understanding of how the world ought to work and indeed does work, there is no common ground between us whatever. If you want to understand how I view economics and economists, start here: http://www.dieoff.com/page236.htm

[kristopher]

30. That is obvious crap

First, I'm not an economist; but I have studied it enough to understand what it can and can't do. What it can do is predict what will happen under certain clearly defined circumstances - such as the depletion of a finite resource.

What it doesn't do, and makes no claim to doing, is to evaluate the normative decisions related to the objects of analysis.

I am trained as a policy analyst which means I have a toolkit of different approaches. It also means I have a lot of experience evaluating the type of work you've done. It isn't personal, as you are trying to make it. It isn't philosophical. It is accuracy and validity of conclusions that I'm looking for - does the information you present support the claims you make? No, it doesn't, and I've explained briefly why.

Your link is an uninformed rant that confuses normative and positive economics. That is such a basic error that I didn't read past the first paragraph.

Here is the beginning of an explanation of the difference:
http://www.env-econ.net/2006/06/normative_versu.html
"Normative versus Positive Economics Of Meat

In my graduate economics training, instructors went to great lengths to try to drive in the difference between normative and positive economic statements. Normative statements are non-falsifiable statements of what should be. Positive statements are potentially falsifiable statements. The ongoing thread on meat consumption reminded me of my struggles understanding the difference."

What I REALLY don't understand is your reluctance to accept what are, to me, extremely obvious criticisms of your view regarding the position of energy in the future of humanity. When you resort to such reactionary criticisms like the one I'm responding to, it calls into question your objectivity and the reasons that may underpin its lack.

[GliderGuider]

31. Right.

My position is that not everything in the world can be substituted. Some things (like oxygen or water) have roles that permit no substitutes at any price. An example would be substituting nitrogen for oxygen in a manned spacecraft. Nitrogen would maintain the cabin pressure just fine, but a pretty important quality of the system would be lost.

I believe that oil and natural gas are the oxygen and water of our industrial civilization. Some aspects of their contribution could be substituted, but I have yet to find any substitutes that I think would would maintain the structure of the system in its present form and permit it to retain its present functions. If I'm correct, then the changes we need to make are much deeper and more fundamental than just finding new motive power for cars, new feedstocks for fertilizer and plastics, or new sources of home heat.

What I find remarkable is the amount of effort you're putting in to try and make me change my mind. Surely an amateur paper published on the internet by an unknown with no credentials doesn't have that much disruptive power? The internet is full of bullshit. Why not just drop my paper onto your personal manure pile and move on?

[kristopher]

32. Then let's discuss the basis of your claims regarding what can't be substituted

To a degree you are right about the broader value of hydrocarbons. It is a gross exaggeration to put it on a par with water and oxygen, but I feel the plastics industry and heavy shipping are areas where we have very little in the way of alternatives. Other issues related to building a sustainable economic system are of equal concern to me. We are drowning in garbage, including those plastics I'm so fond of, we are facing imminent crisis related to fresh water, the advances in chemistry have created literally thousands of new compounds that are finding their way into our food and water, and the the only international agreement we have regarding such chemicals hasn't had a new one added to the list in over 20 years.
There is no shortage of things to worry about.

As to why I'm taking the time, I sometimes wonder myself. I suppose the best answer is a question: When you see someone spreading obvious misinformation designed to stir up people against the valid science of climate change, do you ever decide to engage them?
One thing that does bother about this forum, now that you mention it, is the extraordinary concentration of pronuclear posts. I think I have a good handle on the general distribution of people who support nuclear power both within a number of different demographic groups. And I've never seen anything quite like it.

And for some reason, I'm always curious about such anomalies.

[GliderGuider]

33. OK, lets talk about that.

The problems with substitutability come in two areas. The first is physical properties, as with NG used for plastics. The other is the energy content, and specifically net energy content. We use vast quantities of hydrocarbons, and our civilization requires a certain flow rate to keep operating. If the flow slows down, so does human activity. Now that might not be a bad thing, and we can certainly operate societies at much lower levels of consumption than we are used to in North America. However, much of our cultural and economic life is predicated on the flow rates we currently use. If those flow rates slow down suddenly, there is no time to adjust and dislocations will occur.

Now, flow rates can slow down because less hydrocarbons are being delivered for general use. This is what happens with Peak Oil and Gas. The other way the flow rate can slow down is if more and more energy is required to produce the flow rate needed for end use. This is the main insidious problem with virtually all substitutes I've found, whether it's electrolyzed hydrogen for fertilizer, agrifuels for transportation, or renewable organics for plastics. The amount of energy that has to be diverted to make them is so high that it would require a major expansion of the overall system to provide the same output. The infrastructure changes and system expansion that would be needed to accommodate their use cannot be made cheaply or quickly.

Combine that with the probability that we will have to make major system changes over a very short timeframe as hydrocarbons begin to deplete, and the probability of major socioeconomic disruption caused by hydrocarbon depletion approaches unity. I think that's going to happen, and my somewhat alarming papers are an attempt to prod people to wake up and start taking personal steps to insulate themselves against the crisis. I don't think recycling and substituting your light bulbs will be enough.

Of course the problem goes deeper than that. You point out the problems with pervasive chemical pollution. To that we can add the rest of the sad litany - droughts and floods, aquifer depletion, soil depletion, desertification and deforestation, the collapse of ocean fisheries, the economic collapse that is just beginning, the extinctions that may be approaching 200 species a day, the instability of global food supplies. If you think I'm being alarmist about energy, you should hear me on the warpath about the whole Converging Crisis (energy, ecology and economics). The truly alarming thing is how all these problems interact, as well as how fast they are all converging on us. It's happening right now.

In the face of that maelstrom of problems, economists' bland assurances that anything can be substituted at a price drive me wild. Such assurances miss the point by so much that they are dangerously counterproductive. A lot of people have concluded from the evidence that due to this convergence human civilization is at a tipping point right now. As a result we also think that the most helpful thing anyone can do is try to awaken wake as many people as possible so they can make whatever preparations they think are appropriate. Telling them that everything is going to be fine, that as soon as oil or food prices get just a bit higher someone will develop substitutes (or better yet, in the passive voice: substitutes will be developed) in my opinion amounts to advising someone in a burning building to go back to sleep until the fire department arrives.

So I don't really care if you think my energy paper was scaremongering. Aside from the fact that I think it's a realistic way to look at our energy situation, I really think there's a lot people need be scared of at this point. If a little jolt wakes them up and keeps them from sleepwalking off the top of the stairs, that's fine with me.

[kristopher]

34. Well, that's a plan.

It isn't mine.

Good luck.

[GliderGuider]

35. I kind of figured that.

Good luck to you too.

[Fledermaus]

46. What are your stock picks for the apocalypse today Paul?

[GliderGuider]

47. My tip of the day is, "Buy gold"

But buy it two years ago.

[Fledermaus]

48. Apparently, Paul knows more about FrontPage than economics

or Physics and energy balances.

What I'm saying is that IF declining production is part of petroleum resource depletion (a reasonable expectation, no?) then the curve for renewables will become even steeper and substitution will occur even faster.

Posted by kristopher

Ha ha ha ha...

"Shell and BP see wind as an increasingly important part of the energy industry," said Randall Swisher, of the American Wind Energy Association. "They want to look for new opportunities, and wind is clearly in their sights."

Shell is developing a $4 billion wind power project in the Texas panhandle. When complete it will surpass Florida Power & Light's "Horse Hollow" wind energy facility to become the biggest in the world.

Not to be outdone, legendary oilman T. Boone Pickens announced his own wind project in the same Texas panhandle area -- a project even larger than Shell's and costing $10 billion.

http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/1136550/

[GliderGuider]

49. An economist might make these observations:

1. Substitution driven by rising prices is most effective when there is a close substitute available. The less perfect (i.e. fit, form and function compatible) a substitute is, and the less immediately available it it, the less probable a seamless substitution becomes. Electricity from wind is not a close, let alone perfect, substitute for petroleum.

2. Oil prices are a lagging indicator of scarcity, not a leading indicator. This is mainly because of a lack of transparency in world oil reserve data. As a result, oil prices can only reflect the balance between current production and demand -- they cannot accurately factor in future production because the remaining supply isn't accurately known. A lot of how successful we are at mitigating the decline of oil will depend on how much of a lag this opacity has introduced. Wind generation (and the infrastructure changes necessary to permit even partial substitution) requires time and industrial capacity to build out. If we don't have enough time (i.e. the peak comes soon and the post-peak decline is rapid), or the capital needed to build the new infrastructure at the rate required is not available, the substitution effort will be less than successful.

I'm not saying we won't respond to price signals with a Herculean effort. Of course we will. What I'm saying is that there are a number of factors -- lack of substitutability, little time remaining and diminishing capital availability -- that introduce significant uncertainty into our chances for success.

Over to you, Batman.

[ben_meyers]

11. The end is near!!! Repent!

[GliderGuider]

13. Yeah! Nothing like that could ever happen to us.

We're human beings, for God's sake! The pinnacle of creation! We've even conquered Mother Nature! We're way too smart to just die like animals from some cockamamie combination of resource shortages and ecological collapse. The Invisible Hand and our Enormous Brain will look after us, just like they always have.

Accurate summation of your position?

[Mythsaje]

15. Oh, yeah...sing it, man.

Another prophet of disaster
who says this ship is lost
another prophet of disaster
leaving you to count the cost
taunting us with visions
afflicting us with fear
predicting war for millions
in the hope that one appears

What's the point of nuclear energy if we're going to implode anyway?

If it's going to happen, it's going to happen.

If he says doing anything is pointless because we're generally screwed, then why bother? Live it up.


He's got his whole Gaea Principle thing, something I actually buy into to some extent. I think the Earth IS a super-organism. But I also believe humanity has more to do than simply die off.

[tom_paine]

39. I'll sing it, Sage.

We watched the tragedy unfold
We did as we were told
We bought and sold
It was the greatest show on earth
But then it was over
We ohhed and aahed
We drove our racing cars
We ate our last few jars of caviar
And somewhere out there in the stars
A keen-eyed look-out
Spied a flickering light
Our last hurrah
And when they found our shadows
Grouped around the TV sets
They ran down every lead
They repeated every test
They checked out all the data on their lists
And then the alien anthropologists
Admitted they were still perplexed
But on eliminating every other reason
For our sad demise
They logged the only explanation left
This species has amused itself to death
No tears to cry no feelings left
This species has amused itself to death.

You are right, Sage, humanity does have much to do besides die off.

We have to finish perfecting the New Totalitarianism of BushPutinism, and deploy it around the world until humanity is in a pre-1776 condition (with pretty window-dressing and fake elections to keep the sheeple believing it's still post-1776).

We have to drill beneath the melting Arctic to pry from it's depths the remaining oil so we can vaporize it into the atmosphere and keep the nonsensical carnvial cacophonously rolling along as long as possible without disturbing the apathy and zombie-like qualities of the TV-addled Inferiors, as the Bushies call us.

We have to invent 50,000-channel HD Cable TV.

We have to finish reinstituting the Grand Chessboard of the 1890s, and eliminate the (w)ussy liberal international system which has been keeping the Superiors down by pretending the Inferiors are deserving of equal value for their (our) lives and equal considerations for their (our) rights.

We have to keep enriching the Superiors, and creating all of our policies of the BushPutinist State revolving around that single concept, so that as few Superiors like the Bushies die-off and that all who do die-off are Inferiors like us, who's lives just don't matter as much as the pets of the rich.

We have to hire one-half of the starving Inferiors to kill off the other half of the starving Inferiors, when Crunch Time comes. We, as in humanity, not we as in us Inferiors.

You are right, Sage. Humanity has much to do before extinction in 2,000-10,000 years, much of it the slow final dregs that won't be fun. And we are going to do it. 99% chance now.

P.S. Iron Maiden does indeed kick ass. But they wrote those songs in another country, another time, one that has as little to do with us as Weimar Germany had to do with Nazi Germany.

[jeanruss]

17. www.twilightclub.org

Anyone who thinks nuclear energy is the answer to energy problems is very unenlightened. If you go to the above website you can read articles by American genius WAlter Russell about the coming Hydrogen Age(which we could have had 60 years ago if the oil corps would have allowed it). The Age of fossil fuels is ending and this new age of Hydrogen will revolutionize mankind and this planet. Russell was a fascinating Renaissance Man who links and explains God and Science. America has been robbed of his help, but it's not too late.

[Peace Patriot]

18. To say we're all doomed, and we need to plot our individual survival against

the hungry hordes, is to underestimate the power of collective human consciousness and action. It is a very skewed rightwing position--skewed as with the narrow, stupid view that you should remove greenery--the English countryside hedgerows--for the sake of "study"--greenery that not only stabilizes the soil, regulates water flow and is beautiful, but that the atmosphere requires. It's like the "scientists" who come up with all sorts of reasons why clear-cutting forests is beneficial, and are blind to the ECOLOGY of a forest--the complex interaction of many species with soil, water and air, over time. People feel it. Poets and painters feel it most of all. The BEAUTY of complexity--which only recently the better scientists have begun to understand and respect. Similarly, Bushites think they can use the blunt instrument of war to get their way. But people and societies are more complex than they will ever understand. You kill one person unjustly, and you get a whole family, a whole community, and future generations of hostility and resistance. And if you don't understand that, then you will let your buddies loot the aid funds that might mitigate the hatred that you have infused into the world.

Rightwing thinking is simplistic. You face a crisis by hoarding, by taking care of yourself, by filling your cave with gold to buy yourself out of problems, by becoming a "dictator" over the surviving 20% of humanity. It's certainly okay--indeed, it is a requirement of morality and ethics--to cry the alarm over a developing catastrophe. Al Gore is doing that, for instance--and many environmentalists. But to try to disable humanity's natural creativity, intelligence and altruism, by saying 'we're all going to die, give it up, save yourself' is both morally repugnant and the absolutely wrong thing to do, in practical and strategic terms. It FAILS to acknowledge and activate human ingenuity, and humanity's best qualities, including our ability to pull together in a crisis. It is the stupidity of fascism--that some "father god"-dictator or comparable scientific "experts" are going to save you. They never do. They only make things worse. And their greed and fear disempower the bulk of humanity which CAN solve problems, collectively.

Is this guy trying to sell a book, or what? Trying to get big contracts as a "consultant" the nuclear power industry? Anyone who favors "market forces" in the current economic/environmental meltdown of the planet is a total idiot.

[slackmaster]

41. Having been born in 1958, I don't expect to be alive in 2100

:shrug:

[conning]

45. gobal climate change

is now underway. hello to the anthropecentric worldview. it is over.