Have a read/watch video here:
www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/chapter-18-envi...a
The jist of it is that we are fast using up our easy to get resources (oil, minerals etc) and as these resources get ever harder (or require more energy to extract) the world as we know it will change.
I think many people do not realise that the only reason we have the 'modern world' is down to the cheap and easy energy given to us by natural gas and oil reserves.
Many people also believe that it is their 'right' to drive a 'gas guzzler'. Do they really understand the impact it will have on us all when we reach peak oil? I believe in freedom and allowing people to do as they they choose, but can it be allowed if it will cause devasation on a global scale? Why are we so obsessed with 'growth'? How about maintaining a steady level and making sure there is something left for our children to inherit?
Has anyone noticed that oil is only $44 a barrel and yet petrol still hovers around 90p/litre? No one is complaining about the price of petrol/diesel, maybe its still too cheap?
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So what if the oil runs out. Fat lot of good it would have done us to leave it buried in the ground, would it?
We'll either develop another source of power or future generations will just have to find an alternative way of getting by.
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So what if the oil runs out. Fat lot of good it would have done us to leave it buried in the ground would it?
I agree, we would be mad not to use the resource. The concerm is that our whole way of living has become so dependant on it. If it's removed too quickly then everything collapses.
We'll either develop another source of power or future generations will just have to find an alternative way of getting by.
Yes we need to wake up to the fact that it will run out. Seems a bit selfish to say lets leave future generations to worry about it, it will probably affect you in your lifetime. I don't believe in leaving the whole of my estate to my children, but surely everyone would want to leave something for their children? We need to be putting more effort into finding the alternatives now.
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This is where the market economy fails. As a limited resource, oil should be almost priceless, but the market dictates that it will be tuppence a bucketful for as long as it's easy to extract.
Absolutely we are not measuring the real cost of everything we consume.
Interesting take on consumerism
www.storyofstuff.com/
I think it was about 10 years ago that I read that half of all the resources that had ever been used had been used in the last 50 years. Yet waste is still astronomical.
I do find it strange though that all the focus seems to be on the efficiency of the car, not on feckless use. I am staggered at the distances that some of my colleagues commute daily - 70+ miles each way is not uncommon - because they can. The only limit is how long it takes, which is why there's really no point just building roads - people will just travel even further.
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Good link, nice video.
>>I do find it strange though that all the focus seems to be on the efficiency of the car, not on feckless use
Yes, it's the "I drive a pruis so it's ok to use it on un-necessary journeys" mentallity. A car is most efficient when it is doing zero miles to zero gallons - i.e its sitting on the drive while you take the bus or walk.
A good arguement for removing stamp duty and making it cheaper for people to re-locate.
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I do find it strange though that all the focus seems to be on the efficiency of the car, not on feckless use.
I fear that some people now regard the car as an essential for even the shortest journeys. Was speaking to to some local teenagers recently who were bemoaning the fact that they had no transport to the City centre and were dependant on their parents for lifts - distance to city centre 2 miles - 40 mins walk!
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distance to city centre 2 miles - 40 mins walk!
Yeah CGN, good point.
In my carless, pre 1961 or so youth I thought little of walking from Soho to Notting Hill or Battersea. Night buses were infrequent and I was often abroad after the tube had closed down (as I sometimes am to this day).
Others did lots of walking around too. In the early mid-sixties, when I worked for a while as a market research interviewer (later went into the office for more money and less walking) learned large areas of Stepney, Wapping, Rotherhithe and Hackney on foot, and did a bit around the Old Kent Road too. One of many reasons why when I was minicabbing ten years later I had a far larger London schematic map in my head than most of my colleagues. Nothing like Shanks's Pony for really learning a place inside out. The Knowledge? Do me a favour guv. Them cabbies just swans abaht on scooters innit? That's why the carphounds quite often use ridiculous routes or don't know where places are (not always though, must admit).
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Anyone who is driving a gas-guzzler is paying vast amounts of tax some of which is meant to be spent, among other things, on mitigating the effects of burning fossil fuels ie Green taxes
If the Government is spending the money bailing out crippled banks that is not the motorist's decision
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If the Government is spending the money bailing out crippled banks that is not the motorist's decision
Personaly I would have let the banks go bust as there are plenty of banks that are doing ok that would take on the services. The money should have been spent on research into energy efficiency - both for motoring, homes and industry. This would help us in the UK in two ways, firstly it would reduce our dependance on other countries for energy which would bring security and ecomonic benefits. Secondly we would have technology that could be sold or licenced for use around the world.
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I think the poit here is that there is a difference between reasonable use and profligate use.
The difference between the two, for those who run big heavy cars (trying not to use SUV) on the motorway at 85-90mph is probably 10 years (my guess) difference in the time when you have to throw the car keys away and all the arabs get back on their camels and ride back into the desert.
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I think the poit here is that there is a difference between reasonable use and profligate use.
What about use for no other reason than the pleasure it brings? Is that reasonable (disposable income is there to be spent on leisure activities that make life more enjoyable), or profligate (leisure activities are unacceptable, or at least morally dubious, if they consume a finite resource that's needed for essential services), or something else?
The difference between the two for those who run big heavy cars (trying not to use SUV) on the motorway at 85-90mph is probably 10 years (my guess) difference in the time when you have to throw the car keys away
Running out of oil doesn't mean anything as dramatic as throwing the car keys away. Far from it - it just means we have to find different ways of fuelling the car. The difference you suggest simply affects how urgently we have to do that.
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The thing that intrigues me about all of the debate is that there's a sort of assumption that the earth was intended to be here forever with us on it. All we have to do is look after it carefully.
The earth is going to wear out eventually. The natural resources we rely on currently will be used up. Is piddling about with hybrid cars and wind turbines going to make a great deal of difference in the long run? Not unless every country has them and they won't.
I don't suggest that profligate use of energy or natural resources is acceptable but I do propose to try and enjoy the rest of my life, and hope that my kids and their's when they have them, will do the same. If enjoyment involves a car that uses more fuel than some, so be it.
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The earth is going to wear out eventually.
An interesting point of view, and one which I find myself agreeing with.
We will never recycle everything, or make everything from renewable sources. There will always need to be some resource input, and there will come a time when, if we're not in a position to up our entire civilisation and move it, we will be wiped out as a species. Whether that's through lack of food, energy or more likely, a strike from an asteroid or some such other completely random natural event that will render the planet uninhabitable long before we flood it or turn its oceans to acid. Mathematically we are apparently long overdue a major collision.
If I live to average age, I've got another 40 or so years left. I will not be wasting them worrying about a future i cannot see, predict, or frankly influence in the greater scheme of things. Leave it to future generations to take care of themselves using technologies and understanding which will be available to them, and likely to be far in excess of what we have now. Just like our ancestors left it to us, and theirs to them.
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