At one time, the future was seen as a glowing place, enabled by natural scientific progress. But since the '60s, I think, there's been an institutional distrust of honest science by our political elite - to the point where the conclusions are reached and then the 'science' is found that supports it. Over at Historic parallels in our time: the killing of cattle -vs- carbon - Watts Up With That?, the parallel is drawn with the voluntary slaughter of all the animals the Xhosa depended on for sustenance, and the destruction of all their stocks of grain, and the destruction of the tools they needed for agriculture, at the behest of a 15 year old girl's dream.
Needless to say, the herds of cattle, supplies of food and tools that were supposed to magically appear once all the animals were slaughtered never appeared. The population dropped from 105k to 26k, with between 45-50k dead and the rest moving elsewhere.
Western civilization now stands on the brink of repeating the experience of the Xhosa. Since the advent of the Industrial Revolution in the late eighteenth century, Europe and North America have enjoyed the greatest prosperity ever known on earth. Life expectancy has doubled. In a little more than two hundred years, every objective measure of human welfare has increased more than in all of previous human history.That may not be their intention - but that's what would happen. 'Good intentions' don't make for good results - they come from a combination of good intentions, good ideas, good planning, good preparation and good implementation. And the eco-luddites are lacking in 5 out of the 6 - you pick your favorites...But Western Civilization is coasting on an impetus provided by our ancestors. There is scarcely anyone alive in Europe or America today who believes in the superiority of Western society. Guilt and shame hang around our necks like millstones, dragging our emasculated culture to the verge of self-immolation. Whatever faults the British Empire-builders may have had, they were certain of themselves.
Our forefathers built a technological civilization based on energy provided by carbon-based fossil fuels. Without the inexpensive and reliable energy provided by coal, oil, and gas, our civilization would quickly collapse. The prophets of global warming now want us to do precisely that.
Like the prophet Mhlakaza, Al Gore promises that if we stop using carbon-based energy, new energy technologies will magically appear. The laws of physics and chemistry will be repealed by political will power. We will achieve prosperity by destroying the very means by which prosperity is created.And it boggles my mind that some folks just can't see that. They seem to believe there's some sort of 1 to 1 equivalence between a windmill and a coal-fired power plant - building one means you can decomission the other with no net loss.
But it's like comparing a hand flashlight with a couple of AA batteries to a 1kw halogen bulb. You're NOT going to get the same amont of light out of the two.
And then you even see the 'green' alternatives blocked by the 'well meaning' eco-luddites - in solar power plants being cancelled because they'll change the local microclimates. Shade, after all, is something to be avoided in the desert!
And the ones pushing hardest for this stuff are the ones least affected. You can't really persuade me that Pelosi, Reid and Feinstein are ever going to be seriously bothered by any of the 'policies' they support - so aside from the elitism and the feeling of power that's shoving what we DON'T want (higher gas prices, higher energy prices, higher prices for darn near everything) what do THEY get out of it?
Do they realize what they're bringing down on everyone else?
Do they even care?
J.
Comments (2)
California is ahead of the nation in the energy limitation laws. We keep running into lightbulbs people are no longer able to buy do to energy restrictions. It's really annoying. The only satisfaction I can get is that when the bulbs are no longer manufactured as a result of all their rules and regulations, the biggies won't be able to enjoy them while the rest of us peons can't. Everybody's not going to have them. There aren't going to be any work-arounds.
Unless you stock up on them while they're still available. That's the only option...
Posted by suek | June 23, 2009 11:18 AM
Posted on June 23, 2009 11:18
All of those people who say we will develop alternatives to fossil fuels are overlooking the fact that, if there WERE such alternatives, we would ALREADY BE USING THEM. All of the low-hanging energy fruit have already been found. There are NO substitutes on the horizon for portable fossil fuel engines; wind and solar only work for stationary installations (and are NOT environmentally neutral, and DO have deaths associated with their use, and can NOT replace fossil fueled power plants because their power-gathering mechanisms require FAR more land for equivalent power generation, and are subject to inherent periodic shutdowns [clouds, drops in wind...]). Hydrogen is NOT a power source; hydrogen is a very reactive element, so all hydrogen is already locked into compounds, which have to be broken down, with energy inputs, before it can be burned in an engine or run through a fuel cell, so using hydrogen for powering portable devices will require a LOT of stationary power generation (and we won't even go into the problems of hydrogen storage...). Personally, given all of the uses of petrochemicals as chemical feedstocks, I feel we are INSANE to keep simply burning the stuff, but for the foreseeable future, WE HAVE NO ALTERNATIVES. Wishful thinking is not going to change this.
Pragmatically speaking, we can keep doing as we have been doing, while frantically looking for alternatives (someone MIGHT find one), and develop nuclear power to allow us to shift to hydrogen for portable devices (nuclear power will give us the excess energy to produce hydrogen on a mass scale). Politically, it ain't gonna happen, but as long as the consequences are after the next election cycle, political trumps pragmatic.
Posted by John C. | June 23, 2009 12:27 PM
Posted on June 23, 2009 12:27