Long before we have run ourselves into oblivion, we may have spoiled the earth to a degree that we will have all died off. — Bitter Crank

Aha! The rest of your agruments are solid. This (quoted one) we can avoid by smarts.

Magma — Bitter Crank

Geothermal energy! :up:

We could offload some of our energy production onto Earth's natural heat! That would be great for the ecology but bad for the economy (of OPEC countries). How powerful is the OPEC lobby, internationally? Could they, have they, blocked/forestalled efforts/research into green/clean energy? Or are they using all that oil money to wean us off fossil fuel?

....

If only we could reduce the size, weight and increase the life of batteries.

Has anyone done a scientific analysis of the exact problem with batteries? Why are they so big, heavy, and short-lived? Batteries are obese! :snicker:

I have a pessimistic, fatalistic streak, I suppose. I am more confident of pessimistic predictions than optimistic ones. Maybe it's genetic. Some people seem to be born optimists. At 75 it's too late to rewire my brain, neural plasticity not withstanding, You, on the other hand, seem to be very optimistic, so go for it!

I'm not in the battery business, and I'm neither a physicist o chemist. My guess is that a lot of midnight oil is being burned on the problem. It just seems to be very difficult to corral electrons and stuff them into boxes. Then there are problems with heat, chemical stability of the storage media over the long run, not to mention cost $$$.

Still, if you compare a run of the mill D cell with the battery in your cell phone... there was some real progress. Maybe there is an undiscovered exotic molecule out there that will absorb and release electric energy really really well.

I'm not in the battery business, and I'm neither a physicist o chemist. My guess is that a lot of midnight oil is being burned on the problem. It just seems to be very difficult to corral electrons and stuff them into boxes. Then there are problems with heat, chemical stability of the storage media over the long run, not to mention cost $$$.

Still, if you compare a run of the mill D cell with the battery in your cell phone... there was some real progress. Maybe there is an undiscovered exotic molecule out there that will absorb and release electric energy really really well. — Bitter Crank

:up: IE we're waiting for a breakthrough in battery tech. The transformation that would cause would be dramatic and the person/persons involved would be given Nobels for sure.

By the way, nice way of looking at the science of electricity - simple and to the point! We need more people like you!

...

...sustainable pollution free energy is a fantasy. — Bitter Crank

Sure, all that.

But we can do better than we are doing.

Sola dosis facit venenum.

Feel free to comment on other post-modern fantasies that you know of. — Bitter Crank

What else do we do?

I think you are correct about hydrocarbons. "Oil" is such an useful resource, so it likely we cannot go without it. What we can only do is try to do away with burning it as a fuel. And of course, an equilibrium is found always. Be that with the market mechanism, at least partly successful central planning or an mix of the two, or then with calamity, crisis and famine. If a population of a species gets far too big for the resources to sustain it, nature has an apt way of handling these issues. Has happened quite many times.

Yet unlike other species, we can anticipate what we do to our environment. So likely we'll handle this episode somehow. Not with flying colors, but still.

In a way since we live nearly in a post-religious society where many aren't so-called religious, we have a place to fill in our needs. The ecological doom has taken the role of the 'end times' being near and us having the necessity to repent our sins and our sinful way of life.

The problem as I see it is our idée fixe with :fire:

Like moths to a flame!

Judging from our past successes, I'd bet on our future success. I have no idea what 150 years from today will look like, but I imagine it'll be as different as it was 150 years ago. — Hanover

Hey, everyone has to die at some point, somehow, so who cares if a few billions die of hunger, floods, etc., right.

Hey, everyone has to die at some point, somehow, so who cares if a few billions die of hunger, floods, etc., right. — baker

What are you responding to?

Your tribalism.

Hey, everyone has to die at some point, somehow, so who cares if a few billions die of hunger, floods, etc., right. — baker

At least the people who do the dying stuff.

Sola dosis facit venenum. — Agent Smith

Congratulations. You are the first person to post this Latin phrase.

Congratulations. You are the first person to post this Latin phrase. — Bitter Crank

A dubious distinction I'd say; after all I am talking about poisons! :snicker:

Sola dosis facit venenum. — Agent Smith


Congratulations. You are the first person to post this Latin phrase. — Bitter Crank

Si persistere stultum in sua stultitia, sapiens fieret

Quomodo stultus pertinax sapiens efficitur?

Perseuerando in sua stultitia, dum satis agnoscit eam esse stultitiam

The thing is, deviance is not a thing. It is not something you whisk away with a sleight of hand. Deviance is a stance, and something inherently non-objective masquerading as objective. It is not magical thinking to challenge `the concept of deviance, the psuedo objectivity of the category of deviance is itself the magical thinking. A reification, a slight of hand which brings something phantasmal into a fictitious reality.

Whereas, the non-feasibility of renewable energy is a problem as real and objective as it gets. This is *the* problem of our age, and I will not concede it's non feasibility until all the greatest minds of our time are fully engaged with it, and admit defeat. The germane problem, as of now, is why they are not.

Whereas, the non-feasibility of renewable energy is a problem as real and objective as it gets. — hypericin

I don't think it is the non-feasibility of renewable energy per se, which is being challenged by Smil, but the impossibility of replacing the whole entrenched infrastructure based on fossil fuels rapidly enough to achieve the projected reductions of emissions.

It also seems that the only option we have is to try; which should at least have the effect of improving our situation, if not totally ameliorating it. The point is that the problem should be approached with an eye to realism, not to fantasy; as the latter mindset will probably lead to rapid disappointment and ensuing despair.

but the impossibility of replacing the whole entrenched infrastructure based on fossil fuels rapidly enough to achieve the projected reductions of emissions. — Janus

I understand, that's what I meant. And it may not be possible even with endless time.

s the latter mindset will probably lead to rapid disappointment and ensuing despair. — Janus

The thing is, we are already at the despair. And so we don't try, out of fear of disappointment. Far far easier to simply suppress the awareness, after all, there is still time...

If magical thinking is ever needed, it is needed now.

The thing is, we are already at the despair. And so we don't try, out of fear of disappointment. Far far easier to simply suppress the awareness, after all, there is still time...

If magical thinking is ever needed, it is needed now. — hypericin

What if magical thinking leads us to waste time and resources on projects doomed to failure, whereas a realistic, pragmatic attitude might lead us to acknowledge it is now inevitable that it will be bad, but that it can be less bad if we make the right changes?

projects doomed to failure — Janus

Which projects? The ones mentioned in the op are precisely the kind of changes we need to make things less bad. But they aren't perfect solutions, there will always be pollution and carbon emission, So according to the OP they are not worth pursuing? Is that magical thinking, and an excuse for inaction? Outcomes are not binary. It is possible we can still collectively live relativly well for 10 more years, or for 50, depending on our choices now.

The ones mentioned in the op are precisely the kind of changes we need to make things less bad. — hypericin

Only if it can be shown that they are really, when all things are taken into account, greener than fossil fuels. Otherwise they are projects doomed to failure, and perhaps destined to make things worse, not better than they otherwise would have been. The problem is there seems to be no impartial, that is free of politicization, investigation, research and discussion of options.

Also I don't agree that we are already "at the despair". You may be: I think promoting magical thinking might be a symptom.

I nunc intellegite.

"Magical thinking" is from Kunstler's book, "Too Much Magic". Kunstler and Smil both warn us away from solutions which require 'magic' of some sort to work. Replacing petroleum with hydrogen is an example. Hydrogen is a far, far less dense energy source than oil, and it takes energy to get it. If transported, it has to be liquified and kept under cold pressure until it is fairly close to the end user, This can be done, BUT it can not be done without using considerable energy apart from the energy in the hydrogen gas.

Capturing tidal energy is possible, but claiming that it will be a significant source of energy requires a bit of hocus locus, because (as far as I know) tidal energy research is in an early stage. Announcing that in 40 years, everyone will use public transit sounds like a good idea, but it is just more magic if one can not explain how that happy event is going to be brought about.

Fusion is another piece of magical thinking, The magic isn't in the fusion; the magic is in the prediction that it will work, will work well, and will be on line within a few years.

The most magical piece of thinking is that without coal and oil, we will go on our merry way, living as we have been living--plastics and all--just using different sources of energy.

In his "world made by hand" novels, Kunstler illustrates what life would be like after an abrupt break with our energy past. Life goes on, but it is far more difficult. Whether the break is abrupt or more gradual, we should stop thinking about doing things like magically replacing 1 billion gas powered cars with 1 billion electrical cars. (There are about 1 bn cars on the world's roads now,).

I nunc intellegite. — Bitter Crank

Quod bonum est, laetus sum. :grin:



:100:

public transit — Bitter Crank

The Tragedy of the Commons: Anything that's public won't last long - expect decline in the quality of the service as time passes. Plus any motor vehicle accident, by default, is going to be a mass casualty. The government will go bankrupt from getting sued for injuries and deaths of commuters; after all owning private vehicles is prohibited by (a silly) law...to save the planet. :snicker: