No offense, but I understand that this is just too vague to keep my interest. Let's try again in another thread, and thanks for the chat. — Jake
Here is your problem:
You are assuming that "the truth" is crisply, concisely, and clearly stated in clean Helvetica text and that the upshot of seeing the truth is equally obvious. That's not the way truth usually appears. More likely than not it will be laboriously spelled out in obscure language and printed in some barely readable obscure font (figuratively speaking, you understand). Then one has to figure out how to implement the truth that one has understood (correctly or not). — Bitter Crank
The value of electricity makes almost any location cost effective. Put a solar farm on that corn field. The electricity will be worth far more than the corn. A wind turbine doesn't take up much space on the ground, maybe 400 square feet. There is nothing you can grow on 400 sq. ft. worth as much as the electricity produced from that one turbine-bearing mast. — Bitter Crank
but I can explain why science is the right answer - and how accepting that a scientific understanding of reality has the authority of truth, provides a political rationale for the application of technology on merit. — karl stone
Your position, that technology itself is inherently problematic, is a position I've encountered, but haven't argued against before. — karl stone
Hydrogen is simply not a good energy carrier for a few reasons. First, it's not a liquid or solid at ambient temperature, which is a big inconvenience. Second, hydrogen is so small it diffuses through most metals causing micro-fractures leading to failure; solving these problems to power a rocket or in industrial processes can be solved ... but scaling to a transport infrastructure this problem is essentially unsolvable. Third liquid hydrogen boils off and easily slips through the tiniest cracks between parts making it extremely difficult to make a hermetic sealed hydrogen system at a lab level and simply impossible at an infrastructure scale. Hydrogen floats to the top of the atmosphere where it acts as a potent green house gas. — boethius
The amounts of energy consumed by the typical western lifestyle (and that must continuously grow in energy and resource consumption!) is just so enormous that it's simply impractical to live the western lifestyle if convenient energy and minerals are not simply lying in the ground to be dug or pumped out. But if you get rid of waste you get rid or (most) mining, (most) personal large vehicle transport, (most) road construction and maintenance, (most) meat consumption, (most) of suburbia, (most) of the airplane transport and (most) industrial mono-culture farming as (most) people just have a garden and community farm they participate in on the same land area they are currently wasting on lawns and roads (solving many problems). Sure, some of all these things can make sense when needed, but if you look at the numbers there's simply no economic reason to make solar power to make jet fuel to fly people to New Zealand to visit the sets of the Lord of the Rings; so, if you mandated a renewable jet-fuel (through a fossil tax internalizing the true cost of fossil jet fuel into it's price) ... only actually useful flying would tend get done, which if you think about is a very small amount. Likewise, you could mandate less meat consumption overnight (i.e. again, internalizing the real cost into the price people pay for meat) and so people could still eat meat ... they'd just eat a lot less. And so on for every climate or otherwise environmental problem. Nearly every problem can be solved essentially overnight by internalizing it's real cost, people would consume it less or organize their lives to do things for themselves as it just saves too much money not to do it (like a personal garden). Of course, what the true cost is can be debated, but assuming we get it right, then by definition the problem is solved through internalizing the true cost.
What happens the next day? All these industries contract, the capitalist system is thrown into chaos, people's identifies as car riding, suburban house owning, rapacious meat eaters with a job in one of these industries that fly across the globe for a few selfies ... gone. This is the core of the ecological problem and why no politician has done anything about it. Huge push back from existing entrenched industries on one side and on the other identity crisis for a large part of their constituents.
Why (should have) a politician do something given the social upheaval it implies? Because the problems don't go away, and a bunch of social upheaval is far better to live through than the collapse of ecosystems and prolonged global conflicts it will induce (is inducing) and both these factors simply getting continuously worse and worse over time (not some switch that we then adapt to).
The light at the end of the mine shaft is that the system isn't sustainable and so will end. — boethius
Take a larger view. in the years of WWII 1939-1945, horses were indispensable. Why? For one, they don't use oil. For two, they are strong. For three, they can be used flexibly. Four, Germany and the USSR still used horses for various purposes in 1938, and horses were part of military planning.
Spot the horse!
Spot the tanks! — Bitter Crank
Perhaps the problem is that people simply dismiss the most obvious sources how changes happen: through the market mechanism and through technical development. If we can produce energy far cheaper than we get from fossil fuels, we simply won't use those fuels as we earlier did. It surely isn't a political correct idea, relying on the market, but we should think about it.
Let me give a historical example: whale oil.
Early industrial societies used whale oil for oil lamps, lubrication, soap, margarine etc. During the 19th Century this lead nearly to the extinction of whales in the seas and fewer whales meant that the rise the price of whale oil went up. By technological advances the role of whale oil was taken over by the modern petroleum industry and also vegetable oils, which could provide far more oil with a far cheaper price than the whaling industry could. Kerosene and petroleum were far more reliable and became more popular than whale oil and basically could provide energy to the combustion engine revolution, which never could be supplied by whaling. And the whales? Their numbers actually bounced back by an unintensional act of environmental protection by the World's most famous vegetarian: Adolf Hitler. By starting WW2 and by unleashing the German Kriegsmarien in an all-out war on the Atlantic, Hitler (and the Japanese) unintensionally saved the whales as this stopped whaling for a few years and gave the whales a well needed chance rebound in numbers even before banning of whaling was introduced. That a lot of countries have banned whaling simply shows the marginal importance of whale oil and whale meat in these countries.
Hence when we try to make up legislation and create complex mechanisms which the industry and the consumer has to adapt to, perhaps we should first look at how we can steer market forces in the right direction that they themselves can make the change. And this steering can be done by technical innovation. Oil companies do understand that they are in the energy business and if fossil fuels cannot compete with other energy sources, that's it. Then there simply is no future for them in the oil and coal business. If they don't make the change, they'll go the path as Kodak. Hence oil companies can even themselves make the hop to alternative energies. They have already changed from the conventional oil fields for example to shale oil, which basically is a totally different operation. Let's not forget that Peak Conventional Oil has already happened.
Above all, once there are far cheaper energy sources than fossil fuels and the recycling of plastics is done on a massive scale, then indeed can the last remnants of fossil fuel reserves be left underground. Then the eco-friendly policy is quite easy to adapt. — ssu
Mass mobilization, causally speaking, requires a conjunction of opportunities which I feel is not within the reach of many of us. Add to that the fact that most people with the right number of audience aren't bothered by environmental issues. I'm talking about celebrities.
So, it seems to me, those of us who are concerned about the world are left with no choice but to do our stuff at a much lower social stratum e.g. we can raise te awareness of our family or friends or community. We then hope that our efforts spread out from their. — TheMadFool
What happens the next day? All these industries contract, the capitalist system is thrown into chaos, people's identifies as car riding, suburban house owning, rapacious meat eaters with a job in one of these industries that fly across the globe for a few selfies ... gone. This is the core of the ecological problem and why no politician has done anything about it. Huge push back from existing entrenched industries on one side and on the other identity crisis for a large part of their constituents. — boethius
Ahhh, the Malthusians - they are persistently gloomy. Thomas Robert Malthus FRS was an English cleric and scholar, influential in the fields of political economy and demography. He's famous for pointing out the discrepency between the geometric rate of population growth 2,4,8,16 etc, against the arithmetic rate 1, 2, 3, 4, etc, at which agricultural land could be increased. He predicted this would inevitably lead to mass starvation. He was wrong. Clearly, people are problem solvers. They multiply resources with knowledge and technological innovation. I don't need to read Knustler's book to know he's wrong. I can see the arithmetic of his argument a mile away - and while seemingly logical, it just doesn't model reality. — karl stone
Thanks for starting this interesting thread with your original post. You do make some good points on what is both an important yet often overlooked topic.
But imho, dismissing a book by its cover like you practically did with Kunstler’s book is sawing off the branch you’re sitting on because you happen to be in a tidying mood. In general, thoughts that are overly dismissive can and probably will be dismissed. But whatever! Carry onward. — 0 thru 9
Dare to hope. — karl stone
[Kunstler] predicted this would inevitably lead to mass starvation. He was wrong. — karl stone
My manners are appalling, and I'd apologize, but I have something to say that's difficult for people to hear. I can't apologize for the tactics employed to put that idea across, but at the same time it's absolutely not my intent or desire to hurt anybody. I'm sure it's a wonderful book! With a dreadful conclusion!! — karl stone
This is a problem we've been aware of for many years. We just can't help ourselves. We can't stop just taking more and more and more.... There's a brick wall ahead, and we should be braking. But we're still accelerating. In some instances, our acceleration is still increasing! Doodling? I hope not. Terrified? Yes, frankly. :fear: — Pattern-chaser
- it would be a very great help to me if you wrote a short, concise precis of the central arguments. — karl stone
Disagree. Braking is a terrible idea. Slow down, have less? I think NOT! — karl stone
Braking is a terrible idea. Slow down, have less? I think NOT! — karl stone
Braking is a terrible idea. Slow down, have less? I think NOT!
— karl stone
Then it is difficult to see how you can achieve the apparent aims of this thread.... — Pattern-chaser
Stated aims... — karl stone
I'm not an electrical engineer - I'm a philosopher. I've pointed out two dozen times that I'm only seeking to prove in principle that it's technologically possible. It's not fair to expect schematics and a business plan. I'm one man trying to correct a 400 year old philosophical error in the political history of my species, as a means of absolving science of the heresy of which it was accused, that in turn made it a whore to capitalism and a lobbyist on the steps of Congress - when it rightfully owns the highest authority, and should command at least some share of the enormous wealth and resources it has made available. — karl stone
We just can't help ourselves. — Pattern-chaser
But I don't think that connects with your mission of absolving science of heresy. If capitalism makes a whore of science, that's not the fault of science; capitalism prostitutes everything. — Bitter Crank
Granting science the highest authority is debatable because science doesn't produce truth about everything. It has the capacity to give us a truthful report on the physical, natural world. That's no small thing. It is gradually revealing how our brains work--that is most excellent. I trust science. — Bitter Crank
What science is not equipped to do is tell us what we should do. Science could help launch the industrial revolution by revealing how things work. It could not inform the first industrialists whether they should build steam engines, power looms, and railroads. Science revealed the nature of electricity; it could not reveal whether the telegraph, telephone, and light bulb were good ideas. — Bitter Crank
I don't think science is much encumbered by charges of heresy. What encumbers us all is the grip of capitalist economics and ideology on most of the world. The operation of capitalism is observable and predictable; that's what Karl Marx did. Capitalism is apparently blind to the consequences of its own operation (or at least has major vision problems). Capitalists who are willing to prostitute science probably aren't willing to consult science for advice. Therein lies a major part of our present problem. — Bitter Crank
Had the Church recognized the significance of science from 1630, and pursued it as effectively the word of God the Creator - science would own authority, and be pursued much more rapidly and systematically than it was. — karl stone
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