Trying to fix the problems of civilization by using alternative energy...

[GliderGuider]

...is like trying to fix a broken toe by hitting it with a lighter hammer.

[slackmaster]

1. Yes, civilization is overrated

I'm going to cut the soles off my shoes, sit in a tree, and learn to play the flute.

[GliderGuider]

2. That's what Principal Poop put down at the Pep Rally, for sure.

I graduated from More Science High myself :-)

Hey, nobody says you gotta change a thing. Just don't be surprised if the pain doesn't go away.

[Octafish]

25. Eat it. Eat it raw!

Rah! Rah! Rah! That's the kind of spirits we have here at Morse Science High.



OIL

a semi-famous prayer by Firesign Theatre:

Anointed with oil on troubled waters?
Oh heavenly Grid,
help us bear up thy Standard,
our Chevron flashing bright
across the Gulf of compromise,
standing
Humble on the Richfield
of Mobile American thinking,
here in this Shell, we call life.

[bowens43]

3. Yes, much better that we just sit around complain.....

[GliderGuider]

4. Do whatever you feel you must

As I said above, just don't be surprised if it doesn't make the pain go away.

[bananas]

8. That's what country music is for

It's the most depressing stuff you've ever listened to...
"My baby left me and took my dog..."

[kestrel91316]

10. So what exactly do YOU propose? Mass suicide?

[GliderGuider]

13. See post #12 n/t

[kestrel91316]

14. Conservation/lifestyle change + alternative energy just MAY save our bacon.

Conservation/lifestyle change + continued fossil fuel use surely will NOT.

[The2ndWheel]

15. Fossil fuels are an alternative energy

And there won't be much conservation going on until everyone everywhere has everything they need and/or want.

[kestrel91316]

19. Fossil fuels are not an alternative to fossil fuels unless you have the

thought processes of a Republican whose first language is Doublespeak:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublespeak

[The2ndWheel]

21. I didn't say they were an alternative to fossil fuels

I said fossil fuels are an alternative form of energy.

[bananas]

5. It's called a "rubber hammer", not a "lighter hammer".

[GliderGuider]

6. Yes, that will surely help.

The toe's still broken, though.

[greyl]

7. I think a heavier hammer is what broke it to begin with. Relative, ya know. nt

[Nederland]

9. What solution do you propose?

Or do you simply believe we are doomed regardless?

[GliderGuider]

12. No, we're not "doomed"

I propose that we go on living as mindfully as we can, decreasing the amount of stuff we use, decreasing the number of children we have, re-orienting our value systems so that our happiness isn't defined in terms of the horsepower of our car, the square footage of our home or where we took our last vacation, stuff like that.

I do recommend that everyone think hard about the true nature of the situation we're in, how we got into this situation and what's keeping us from making the radical individual and collective changes that seem to be called for. Local action is more likely than global action, and having a clear understanding of the situation is the best bet for choosing actions that will on balance help more than they hurt.

Beyond that I think it would be wrong for me to tell you what to do. What you do is your choice.

[Nederland]

18. Agreed with all but one point

I think people should NOT cut down on the number of children they have. People in the developed world cut down on the number of children they have automatically--there is no reason to push it further than it has already gone. In fact, I will go as far as to say that underpopulation will be one of the developed world's biggest problems in the coming decades. In large portions of Europe and Japan there simple will not be enough people to sustain the social safety net those countries have created for people once the current generation begins to retire.

[GliderGuider]

22. Regarding population reduction

I said this in another thread:

The (population) bun-fight generally devolves into a stand-off: "The first world has to reduce their consumption, but not their population" vs. "The third world has to reduce their population, but not their consumption."

One thing that would be helped by a reduction in human population, no matter which "world" you're talking about, is biodiversity loss. Human populations out-compete all other species for habitat, and it takes very little human encroachment to reduce regional biodiversity.

Beyond that one area it becomes a question of human impact as symbolically expressed by I=PAT, where the higher levels of technology and activity come into play alongside sheer population numbers.

In order to avoid puerile charges of promoting genocide, I've adopted the following position (which I also think is how it's actually going to play out):

1. Human population growth (but not our absolute numbers) will continue to decline due to the ongoing world-wide decrease in birth rates. This decline is being driven largely by the spread of affluence.

2. Absolute human numbers will eventually be reduced by involuntary resource shortages and system failures induced by the spread of affluence through a growing population as described in point 1.

We can help along the declining growth rate in point 1 by educating and empowering women as well as by expanding access to family planning knowledge and technology. Mother Nature will take care of point 2.

It sounds like you're advancing an economic argument for not reducing first-world populations. I think that's short-sighted thinking. Be that as it may, the countries that are already at identifiable economic risk from depopulation don't need any further encouragement -- they're already doing it. Borderline countries like the USA still need some encouragement in that direction.

[Nederland]

23. Point #2 does not match the facts

The facts are that death rates due to resource shortages have been declining for decades. The assertion that human beings will "soon" start dying off in increasing numbers due to resources shortages is a prediction that has been continually put forth for decades, only to be proven false time and time again. This is not to say that the existing trends will not reverse themselves at some point in the future. I merely point out that the predictive track record of the Malthusians has been dismal up to this point in time.

[GliderGuider]

24. Remember the disclaimer on every stock prospectus:

"Historical performance does not guarantee future performance."

I think you're wrong in your assumption that events like the Green Revolution can be repeated at will. I think there is more and more evidence that we are approaching a multi-factorial inflection point in the trajectory of industrial civilization.

[Nederland]

26. The Green Revolution Excuse

Malthusians like to claim that the only reason their 1960's predictions did not come true was because of the Green Revolution. They talk as if this one technological occurrence merely postponed the inevitable. Again, the facts do not fit this assertion. For example, Lester Brown and Paul Ehrlich both made numerous predictions long after the Green Revolution about peaking food production rates that also failed to pan out. It is not a question of being wrong once, it’s a case of being wrong over and over and over again. At some point an honest scientist needs to take a step back and say: "Ok, what am I doing wrong here?" Malthusians never do.

[GliderGuider]

27. Well, I took a step back. Here's what I saw

• Atmospheric CO2 is nearing 400 ppm.
  
• We are emitting carbon dioxide 10 times faster than one of the largest known volcanic eruptions (the Deccan traps) that was implicated in the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event 65 million years ago.
  
• Ice caps and glaciers are disintegrating.
  
• Oil production is on a 4 year plateau despite prices that have quadrupled.
  
• Oceans in which the coral reefs are dying, tropical jellyfish are invading northern waters, dead zones are expanding, and predatory fish species (the ones we eat) have declined by 90% in the last 50 years.
  
• The biomass in the Great Lakes has fallen by 92% is 18 years.
  
• Extinction rate estimates are up to 200 species per day.
  
• The Great Pacific Garbage Dump, full of plastic.
  
• 150,000 square miles of arable land lost each year to urbanization and desertification.
  
• A billion people in over 100 countries affected by desertification.
  
• About 35% of all agricultural land has been seriously damaged by intensive agriculture since WW II.
  
• Soil fertility on the American Great Plains is half what it was a hundred years ago.
  
• The Ogallala aquifer is being drained 100 times faster than it is being refilled.
  
• Indian farmers have drilled over 20 million water wells using oil-well technology. They take 200 cubic kilometers of water out of the earth each year for irrigation.
  
• We have eaten more than we have grown in 7 of the last 8 years.
  
• World grain stocks provided 130 days of consumption in 1986 –- today, it's only 53 days.
  
• Global per capita grain supply has fallen from 340 kg in 1984 to 300 kg today.
  
• The price of fertilizer is rising exponentially.
  
• The FAO predicts that climate change will cut African maize production by 30% in 20 years.
  
• The cost of food is skyrocketing world-wide. Some countries have responded by banning exports of wheat or rice.
  
• We are in the beginning stages of a global financial crisis that could result in either a deflationary or hyper-inflationary depression lasting for a decade or more.

Now, you tell me how that litany of converging calamity suggests that Malthus will be "proven wrong" again.

[Nederland]

28. That list proves absolutely nothing

It is a list, that is all. It is similar to the list that got trotted out in 1968 with the publication of the Population Bomb, similar to the list that got trotted out in 1990 with the publication of The Population Explosion, and similar to the list trotted out in 1994 and 1996 when Lester Brown declared that the end was near. In every case the Malthusians gave a list that described the current state of things and exclaimed: "Surely things can't continue like this. The end is near."

Well, it turned out that things could indeed continue like that and the end wasn't near.

Let me ask you a simple yes or no question. Was Paul Ehrlich wrong when in 1990 he predicted that food production was nearing it's peak? No speeches or long winded responses, just a simple yes or no. Answer simply and I'll ask a follow up question.

[GliderGuider]

30. Point me to the text of his prediction and I'll give you an answer.

[Nederland]

33. Take your pick

Here is a link to the relevant chapter of the Population Explosion.

http://www.ditext.com/ehrlich/4.html

Read through it and I'm sure you can find numerous items that are incorrect such as "China's grain production peaked in 1984". It doesn't really matter what you pick, the bottom line is that while Ehrlich was careful to avoid the specific types of predictions he made in his first book (The Population Bomb), the tone of the book definitely indicates that Ehrlich believes that a population disaster is impending.

[GliderGuider]

34. OK. My answer is "No, Ehrlich was not wrong in that chapter of his book."

You may disagree with his pessimistic tone, but that chapter is simply an analysis of the world food situation and observable trends in 1990. He identifies inequities in food availability between the developed and the developing world (none of which have been significantly ameliorated in the 18 years since publication). He also identifies a long series of observed challenges facing world food production, but is always careful not to assign quantitative future outcomes to any of them. His pessimism is mainly confined to the developing world, and that has proven accurate -- the impact of food production and distribution problems have affected them much more than the West.

I find that chapter to be a model of scientific probity and restraint.

On edit: Ehrlich indeed believes, based on his examination of the evidence, that a population catastrophe is possible at some point in our not-too-distant future. Based on my more cursory examination of similar evidence, I agree with him.

[Nederland]

35. Well then you are in denial

This is what Ehrlich said about China in 1990:

China's grain production peaked in 1984 at a level roughly three times that of 1950; since then, production has fallen. After the drought-reduced 1988 harvest, China had to import about 15 million tons, some 5 percent of its domestic grain consumption that year. In part, the decline in grain production reflects improvements in diets, as some land formerly planted in grain now produces a variety of other foods.

The development of nonagricultural sectors of China's economy, however, is also partly responsible for reduced grain harvests. Industry is diverting water from agriculture, and homes and factories are being built on scarce arable land. Each year some 4,000 square miles of farmland are taken out of production, three quarters of it for construction. This is an alarming trend for a nation that has 7 percent of Earth's farmland but is trying to feed 21 percent of the human population.

Although China has been very successful in reducing its birthrate, housing and employment still must be provided for about 15 million more people each year. Unless the trend in land conversion can be reversed and steady growth in grain production restored, China will become a major food importer by the mid-1990s -- if sufficient foreign exchange can be earned through industrial exports and if enough grain is available for sale on the world market. The latter, of course, will depend on production elsewhere.

http://www.ditext.com/ehrlich/4.html

This is the reality of what happened in the years following this assessment:

The second phase (1979-1984): In 1984 China's total grain output rose to 407.3 million tons, increasing by an average of 4.9 percent a year during the six years from 1979 to 1984. This second phase saw the highest increase rate in the country's grain production, which was made possible mainly by a series of reform policies and measures initiated in the rural areas by the Chinese government, including, among others, the household contract responsibility system with remuneration linked to output, the two-layer management system featuring the integration of centralization and decentralization, and raising, by a fairly large margin, of the prices of grain purchased by the state. These important policies and measures greatly stimulated the enthusiasm of the farmers, brought into full play the potential for agricultural production accumulated through years of efforts to improve agricultural infrastructure, the level of science and technology and the amount of investment. In this way an end was put to the situation of China's chronic grain shortages.

The third phase (1985-present): In 1995 the country's grain output totaled 466.6 million tons, increasing by an average of 1.2 percent a year over the previous 11 years. While continuing to develop grain production in this period, the Chinese government has initiated measures to readjust the structure of agricultural production and develop a diversified agricultural economy. At the same time rapid progress was achieved in the production of various other kinds of foodstuffs, with the output of meat (pork, beef and mutton), aquatic products, eggs, milk and fruit reaching 42.54 million tons, 25.17 million tons, 16.76 million tons, 5.62 million tons and 42.11 million tons respectively, or 2.8, 4.1, 3.9, 2.6 and 4.3 times the 1984 figures, respectively. Despite a lowered increase rate of grain production, the quality of people's life was greatly improved because of increased non-grain food supply during this period.

http://www.china.org.cn/e-white/grainissue/g-1.htm

The error is quite clear: Ehrlich predicted that the food situation in China would get worse, while in reality it got better. Chinese grain production did not fall, it increased. It increased even though its rate of cropland reduction accelerated, which was what concerned Ehrlich the most. Quite simply, this is getting it 100% wrong. If you cannot admit to this failure of analysis I'm not sure if a continued discussion is worth my time.

Here is the crux of what I'm trying to say. Three years ago I made a prediction and bet that oil prices would fall. I was horribly wrong. My response to that fact is to look at what happened and figure out what assumptions I made that were incorrect and how my own theory of how oil prices behave was in error. I will not stick my head in the sand and pretend that I wasn't wrong, nor will I make lame excuses. This is what an honest, intelligent person does when they are wrong. The Malthusians show no evidence of this type of open mindedness regarding their own failures. I find that extremely unscientific and arrogant, and that is why whenever they continue to make doomsday pronouncements I react with such doubt.

[GliderGuider]

36. The problem is that Ehrlich didn't make a prediction

Certainly not in the sense of "In 1995 China's grain production will have fallen by x% from its current value."

He said, "Unless the trend in land conversion can be reversed and steady growth in grain production restored..." Obviously something like that reversal happened after he wrote his book. In that statement Ehrlich extrapolated a current trend, and explicitly said that's what he was doing. That's completely legitimate. It's not a prediction. He did not say "Here's what will happen", he said, "If the current trend doesn't change, here's what will happen". Trends always change, of course, which is why he's so careful to qualify his statements. His statement was correct. The fact that you interpreted it as a prediction is your problem, not Ehrlich's.

I think the problem (not just between you and me, it's a general one on this topic) is that some people have a very strong aversion to the fatalism that they feel is implied by focusing on the possible continuation of negative trends rather than focusing on their possible reversal.

In my opinion, focusing on negative trends is warranted right now. Of the 20 indicators I gave in my laundry list above, all but one of them has gotten worse since Ehrlich wrote his book in 1990. The lone holdout is world oil production, which is now on a plateau, with a rising price, as you know. In order to discount these trends, I believe you have to be able to argue one of the following: the trend isn't real, or it isn't significant, or it will reverse before any lasting harm is done (along with a reason why it will reverse in the future even though it didn't in the past). I think the trends I enumerated are real, important enough to worry about, and have shown no signs of improvement since Ehrlich wrote his "discredited" Domesday Book.

[Nederland]

37. Read it again

Yes, Ehrlich said "Unless the trend in land conversion can be reversed and steady growth in grain production restored...". The problem is and as I clearly stated in my post, the trend in land conversion did not reverse and in fact accelerated. Therefore Ehrlich was simply wrong. The trend in land conversion did not reverse and production increased anyway.

[GliderGuider]

38. Ehrlich picked the wrong factor to invalidate his non-prediction

Ehrlich didn't say that food production would never rise, he said that if things stayed as they were, it wouldn't. He picked the wrong set of factors to focus on, because the ones that eventually caused the change (in that one country) weren't obvious at the time. I still don't get how that is supposed to invalidate all the warnings of all the scientists who say that things are getting worse and that the longer we wait the more it will take to put things back on the rails, or that we might reach a tipping point past which human-mediated reversal of the trend is no longer possible.

19 of the 20 trends I listed before have gotten worse since 1990. There is no sign they are getting better, and there are signs that the lone holdout trend has reversed and is getting worse. Trying to beat me to death with Paul Ehrlich's pen doesn't change that. Saying that we have temporarily reversed some negative trends in the past says nothing about our chances for permanently reversing these ones.

[Nederland]

41. Here is why

The reason that I beat you to death with Paul Ehrlich's pen is because you continue to make the same mistakes that he did. Let's consider a few items on your list (FYI, most others I agree with):

# 150,000 square miles of arable land lost each year to urbanization and desertification.
# A billion people in over 100 countries affected by desertification.
# About 35% of all agricultural land has been seriously damaged by intensive agriculture since WW II.
# Soil fertility on the American Great Plains is half what it was a hundred years ago.
# World grain stocks provided 130 days of consumption in 1986 and today, it's only 53 days.
# Global per capita grain supply has fallen from 340 kg in 1984 to 300 kg today.

If 150,000 square miles of arable land is really being lost every year to urbanization and desertification, why do global harvests continue to increase? Is 150,000 square miles really a large percentage? Is the land being lost actually being farmed? Is the land being lost marginally productive or very productive?

A billion people in over 100 countries are affected by desertification. What does this mean? What is meant by "affected"?

About 35% of all agricultural land has been seriously damaged by intensive agriculture since WWII. How is "seriously damaged" measured? How can it be that 35% of the land has been "seriously damaged" since WWII while simultaneously harvests have quadrupled since that time?

If soil fertility on the American Great Plains is half what it was a hundred years ago, why are harvests increasing? How is "fertility" measured? Is that measurement relevant?

If world grain stocks provided 130 days of consumption in 1986 and today, it's only 53 days, is that really a bad thing? Is it concerning that global per capita grain supply has fallen from 340 kg in 1984 to 300 kg today? Perhaps the reason is due to better supply management. Perhaps supplies are smaller because all aspects of our economy have undergone a revolution in inventory management that insures that items spend less time sitting in warehouses...

You see, I'm not disputing your facts, I'm disputing the conclusions you draw from those facts. You continue to make the same mistakes that all Malthusians make--a failure to correctly interpret the meaning of the facts you gather. It is that failure of analysis that continually leads to incorrect conclusions.

[GliderGuider]

45. "Conclusions"

You're imputing to me conclusions I have not drawn. I've never ever drawn a specific conclusion based on one piece of evidence. (BTW, all the facts above are taken from reputable sources, like the FAO, USDA, EIA, IFPRI etc.) I have never, and would never, predict a fall in agricultural output based solely on the trend for the loss of arable land, for instance. The conclusion I do draw is much more general, and is based on the number of intersecting negative trends I see out there. My conclusion that we may be facing an insurmountable problem is based on the fact that even a cursory list like the one I presented above contains 20 negative trends spread across a wide spectrum of essential human supports (ecological health, food production, energy production, economic activity). Many of those intersect, for example loss of soil fertility and rising petroleum prices.

The number and diversity of the crises plus their degree of coupling is what gives me a strong sense of unease about the immediate future. I have no idea how the resulting ruptures might manifest, because the system is too complex to permit such accuracy. I do think that if facing a single crisis from that list is like facing a man with a rifle, facing the whole list is like being targeted by a machine gun.

On your specific question about why grain yields keep rising in the face of land loss and soil fertility loss, I refer you to the chart below for one part of the explanation.

[GliderGuider]

47. The units in the chart above are thousands of nutrient tons.

I typed the axis label too early in the morning...

[Nederland]

50. You do draw conclusions

You draw this conclusion (from post #22):

Absolute human numbers will eventually be reduced by involuntary resource shortages and system failures induced by the spread of affluence through a growing population.

This conclusion is identical to the erroneous conclusions that Malthusians have drawn for decades and is the result of a faulty analysis of the facts.

[GliderGuider]

53. Hmm, maybe that is a conclusion.

It's a pretty basic one, though, and hardly specific. I do think that we will see an absolute decline in human numbers due to the factors I mention. It's the outcome of a very simple logic statement: (Humanity is in overshoot) + (All populations in overshoot eventually decline) --> (The human population will decline).

The only way you can argue against that logic is to show a population that is in overshoot but doesn't decline, or to demonstrate that humanity is not in overshoot -- or to argue for human exceptionalism, which is where I think the sticking point between the two camps really is. I largely reject notions of human exceptionalism, and feel we have a lot more commonalities than differences with other species.

You may feel that "Malthusians reach erroneous conclusions due to a faulty analysis of the facts", but I'm under no obligation to agree with that opinion. In fact, I reject it out of hand. The "Malthusians" (I prefer to call them "realists") are the ones who have the correct understanding of the current human dilemma.

[IrateCitizen]

54. "Decades" is an extremely short time frame

I often wonder if similar discussions took place in some circles before the decline of the Roman Empire, with some giving the POV that the Roman way had always worked as long as anyone could remember, therefore it would work into the future, and those predicting Rome's fall were just engaging in a "faulty analysis of the facts."

History does not always progress linearly, despite the wishes of positivists on the right and left.

[kristopher]

43. Sorry to butt in, but I think I can answer that.

Your view is informed by a very high expectation of failure to find a technological solution to our problems. However, the fact is that we usually DO find technological solutions to these types of problem. - in fact, many of our greatest leaps of progress have been made when under pressure like that. No we don't always find an answer, not always, but we do often enough that we tend to believe in them coming through.

I understand your sentiment. In your view, we have a house with a view of the beach in Biloxi MS and you know, sooner or later that hurricane is going to hit; you can only get lucky so many times. Yet we still build right in vulnerable areas. Why is that do you suppose?

[GliderGuider]

46. Time discounts of risk perception

Regarding why we build in Biloxi, I wrote an article that addresses this very question. It a result of our evolved tendency to discount steeply future risks. The discount function is so steep it appears to be hyperbolic.

Why We Don't See Risks: The Hyperbolic Discount Function

[kristopher]

42. A have a question about the price of gas prediction.

Well, actually it's a request, would you mind sharing the circumstances and reconstructing your thinking at the time?

[GliderGuider]

32. Is this what you are referring to?

An exploratory model of the impact of rapid climate change on the world food situation
by Grechen C. Daily and Paul R. Ehrlich (1990)

If this is the "prediction" you're referring to, it's a simulation model. Like all such models it presents a series of outcomes that depend strongly on the assumptions, inputs and paramertizations. If it's what you're referring to, my answer is "No, he wasn't wrong because he did not make a testable prediction about food production."

If it's not what you're referring to, and Ehrlich did make a testable prediction (either based on this simulation or some other basis) then I still need to see it before I can comment.

[kristopher]

51. No, I was talking about the prediction Nederland made that gas prices would drop. nt

[GliderGuider]

52. Wrong post

That one was responding to Nederland's reference to Ehrlich in 1990

[IrateCitizen]

40. In many places, reality won't necessarily be pretty...

Hi, Nederland!:hi:

You said: In large portions of Europe and Japan there simple will not be enough people to sustain the social safety net those countries have created for people once the current generation begins to retire.

This statement supposes that there will be surplus resources to sustain a social safety net. I would tend toward the idea that our resources are overstressed (as did the U.N. millenial assessment) and safety nets will unravel as resources are diverted to more pressing needs. As those nets unravel, new (and perhaps more "human") arrangements begin to develop. Multi-generational households and extended families were the norm throughout the vast majority of civilization -- it is only in the industrial age with its increased mobility and subsequent fracture of those institutions that governments have formed social safety nets. I believe that as mobility decreases and life has to be lived more locally and closer to the vest, you'll begin to see such arrangements resurface, perhaps in novel forms.

Of course, it is the transition itself that won't be very nice. I'm hoping that those of us who have started trying to live a little more deliberately will be a little better suited to deal with it....

Have you read any of Dmitry Orlov's work? They feature him a lot at www.EnergyBulletin.net. His accounts of post-Soviet Russia give a very interesting perspective on social collapse and the way people deal with it.

I must admit, I feel a bit in Bizarro World, what with you arguing in favor of social spending, and me questioning it. ;-)

[phantom power]

11. Stay the course.

[kristopher]

16. Wallowing in woe

Gg loves to wallow in woe-is-we land. The OP is an exercise in demented logic - who makes the claim that using alternative energy is going to "fix the problems of civilization"?

No one makes that kind of claim except Gg as he seeks to create a justification for pontificating on the evil fact of human existence beyond the hunter-gatherer level.

Seeking enlightenment doesn't = hatred of modern humans.

Ask yourself this; 'Are you a human being having a spiritual experience, or a spiritual being having a human experience? - Wayne Dyer, PhD

[GliderGuider]

17. You have a very odd view of me.

It's always interesting to hear others' opinions of yourself, though, for what you can learn about them.

[NNadir]

39. Whatever. It beats wallowing in stupidity.

So called "renewable energy" cannot sustain an industrial society. In fact the creation of industrial society involved abandoning renewable energy.

Personally I find the entire class of "renewables will save us" crowd to be dimwitted, ignorant of science, ignorant of history and just plain ignorant, the sort of twirps whose education consists almost entirely of citing stuff they saw on "Oprah."

[kristopher]

44. And I find people who ignore the abundant well researched evidence

And I find people who ignore the abundant well researched evidence regarding the potential of renewables to be dimwitted, ignorant of science, ignorant of history and just plain ignorant, the sort of twirps whose education consists almost entirely of citing stuff they saw on "Oprah."

Not to mention that they clearly possess embarrassingly substandard IQs.

[glitch]

20. Yeah but you can't really fix a broken toe, so a lighter hammer will hurt less than a heavier hammer

which I assume is war for oil. Time will tell if the toe heals properly on its own but healing is less unlikely with hits from a "lighter hammer" than from a "heavier hammer".

I think doing nothing is out, it's not in our nature.

[XemaSab]

29. Consumerism is the disease, not the cure.

The problems we face are caused by consumerism, and a consumer response cannot solve them.

[GliderGuider]

31. Exactly. n/t

[Kolesar]

48. Why don't you read to your children and watch an Obama speech?

You will feel better. I guarantee it.

[GliderGuider]

49. No kids, not American -- guess I'm SOL

I actually feel extremely optimistic these days. Watching the burgeoning of consciousness around the globe, and seeing what that growing awareness is seeding in terms of local actions makes me feel very, very good about the future of humanity.

The fact that I have a "very high expectation of failure to find a technological solution to our problems" doesn't mean I don't see a hopeful road forward.