1977: Isaac Asimov talks lack of fuel and the future...

[Javaman]

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,918862,00.html

Time Essay: The Nightmare Life Without Fuel
Monday, Apr. 25, 1977

Americans are so used to limitless energy supplies that they can hardly imagine what life might be like when the fuel really starts to run out. So TIME asked Science Writer Isaac Asimov for his vision of an energy-poor society that might exist at the end of the 20th century. The following portrait, Asimov noted, "need not prove to be accurate. It is a picture of the worst, of waste continuing, of oil running out, of nothing in its place, of world population continuing to rise. But then, that could happen, couldn't it?"


So it's 1997, and it's raining, and you'll have to walk to work again. The subways are crowded, and any given train breaks down one morning out of five. The buses are gone, and on a day like today the bicycles slosh and slide. Besides, you have only a mile and a half to go, and you have boots, raincoat and rain hat. And it's not a very cold rain, so why not?

Lucky you have a job in demolition too. It's steady work.

Slow and dirty, but steady. The fading structures of a decaying city are the great mineral mines and hardware shops of the nation. Break them down and re-use the parts. Coal is too difficult to dig up and transport to give us energy in the amounts we need, nuclear fission is judged to be too dangerous, the technical breakthrough toward nuclear fusion that we hoped for never took place, and solar batteries are too expensive to maintain on the earth's surface in sufficient quantity.

Anyone older than ten can remember automobiles. They dwindled. At first the price of gasoline climbed—way up. Finally only the well-to-do drove, and that was too clear an indication that they were filthy rich, so any automobile that dared show itself on a city street was overturned and burned. Rationing was introduced to "equalize sacrifice," but every three months the ration was reduced. The cars just vanished and became part of the metal resource.

More at link...

[RC]

1. Ahh, the reality. Can't be having that here. Maybe if we just ignore things

nothing bad will happen. Besides if we keep increasing our population, we're bound to produce more geniuses that can think our way into a future better than today, right? right?

[harkadog]

2. Was this posted to show how poor these predictions were?

People have been predicting doom and gloom in the near future forever. They are always wrong.

[Javaman]

3. No, if you actually read the article...

You would see it was an exercise in "what if" NOT "what will happen".

:banghead:

[harkadog]

9. I did read it. You can stop pounding your head now.

Your comprehension might be better if you didn't do that. The point is nothing like that did happen or will it. But people do make a lot of money selling doom so it will never go away.

[Javaman]

15. I'll get you a circus tent next time.

It might help you.

I give up.

[dysfunctional press]

4. isaac asimov couldn't foresee electric cars...?

huh...i thought he was brighter than that.

[RaleighNCDUer]

6. And what powers electric cars?

Power plants fueled by coal - which he already posited as being not available.

[dysfunctional press]

19. electricity.

which can come from many different sources.
his reasoning for the lack of coal was that there was no fuel for the mining equipment- which is ridiculous as well, since bio-diesel would still be an available option.

[JI7]

12. i think he was asked to write about what life would be like "IF" that happened

[SoCalDem]

5. If we had only listened to Jimmy Carter, we would be living in a very different world

but his ideas were too dangerous, so he was traded in for Reagan..and now we are where we are:(

[LiberalEsto]

7. "any given train breaks down one morning out of five"

Sounds exactly like the Washington DC Metro system today.

[whatchamacallit]

8. Interesting, I wonder if Jim Kunstler was influenced by this essay... (n/t)

[RaleighNCDUer]

10. I notice he did underestimate a few things.

He didn't figure on crop production skyrocketing - in the 70s, most farms were still family owned, not corporate. He didn't figure on increasing coal production by mountaintop removal - if we still relied on deep mining we could well have the coal shortages he posited, despite the huge coal reserves.

But he also underestimated population growth, pegging it at 5.5 billion in '97, instead of 6.2 billion. And just a decade later, we're looking at 7 billion. They say it will top out between 9-12 billion, but I don't see any reason why it would so long as there is a modicum of food available.

As for the two billion undernourished brain-damaged, what do you think the cause of all the little brushfire wars is? People who, because of malnourishment or environmental degradation, are not intelligent enough to find rational solutions to their problems. IQs are dropping, world-wide, and not just in the third world. Our 'food' doesn't nourish us, and the result? Tea baggers.

There is merit in what he said, but in a 50 year projection and with a population of 9 billion, rather than a 30 year projection and 5.5 billion population. But then, he was an optimist.

[Fumesucker]

13. Most of the teabuggers are of an age where they probably got pretty decent food as kids..

There's more to the teabugger douchenozzlery than simple malnutrition, a lot of them are more about raging bigotry than anything else.

[timeforpeace]

11. He wrote this in a funk about "nuclear power being judged too dangerous". As a physicist he knew it

was the answer and to ignore it would bring all these problems upon mankind.

[Fumesucker]

14. In a perfect world nuclear power would be fine..

In a corporate world ruled by the bottom line obsessed beancounters nuclear power is not something I want as my neighbor.

[upi402]

18. Exactly. If unions made the decisions I'd consider it. But corporations? NO WAY

I may be slow but I ain't stopped.

(and yes, unions are very imperfect. just not mega insanely corrupt and arrogantly evil Satan spawn -imperfect)

[eppur_se_muova]

16. He was a biochemist, but point taken. ;^) nt

[eppur_se_muova]

17. I guess he didn't appreciate how large gov't subsidies would be.

A rational person like Asimov wouldn't project that the US would pilfer taxpayer's earnings to keep Big Oil going, or be allowed to.

(As another DUer pointed out, he didn't anticipate the madness of mountaintop removal (decapitation) either.)

[dysfunctional press]

20. what about biodiesel from algae...?

where there's a will, there's a way. and americans have a LOT of will when it comes to their cars.

[gatorboy]

21. Off to Pandora!