You guys are missing the bigger picture. There are a few premises you must first understand.
1: Technology is not energy
2: Basically the earth is a closed loop system and we can neither create nor destroy energy, we merely gather it.
Unfortunately, we gathered all the best stuff first and now we will have to concoct a myriad of ways to gather energy in energy intensive ways. Thusly losing vast amounts of efficiency from our current paradigm of gathering energy.
In a post peak world we will have a mosaic of alternatives that cannot nearly fill the energy VOID if peak happens within the next 5-10 years at current technology levels and thats even with small % declines. Maybe if we have a full scale “Apollo” mission it could be achieved within a decade w/o terrible consequences. But what are the chances of that happing in the next year or two on a global scale.
Currently there seems to be a growing chorus of experts that say it will be between now and 2011. A few say it happened in 06 and if the current production levels persist thru the new year it looks like it could be true, though maybe on purpose(Saudi could be holding back).
My biggest concern is what happens when the world economy does not have unfettered access to cheap energy as it did in the past? Are all the world countries going to act like civilized adults and work it out? I personally think there will be a huge freak out moment when we really find out how it feels to conserve. It’s the human nature aspect that will get us.
Sprinkle a little climate change, eco-system destruction, water shortages and other resource depletion, financial alchemy and overpopulation into the mix and we have the perfect storm. But I’m sure the invisable hand will take care of all that.
All the while Atlanta decides that it would be a good idea to stop watering lawns just a week or two ago when they have only 80 days of water left. Curious to see how that one plays out. Not a good sign of how we are going react on a global level.
I think we could get of this crisis relatively painlessly with a massive, well planned out group effort, but will invariably will pick the more destructive path. Hell, outlawing non-emergeny single car commuters would save us years but I’d bet we would invade another country before that.
“If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored.”
— “God’s Utility Function”
Sir Richard Dawkins
Scientific American (November, 1995), p. 85
