Modernization cannot continue

What say you? I conclude it's unsustainable in the current form it's taken and when oil runs out we all are going back to preindustrial lifestyles.

 

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Pretty much.

 

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Uh....no. Technologic innovation, creativity and progress will continue. Running out of oil is actually going to be a major step forward in technology - especially as it gives motivation for change.

I have been living with solar heat for 32 years now (type 2 passive). I do not see many other folks doing that, despite that it is cost - effective and non-polluting. When folks get serious about "running out of oil", I will see lots of solar. Also decent insulation and efficient furnaces.

When the price of gasoline really gets too high, I will see no more street racing, monster truck single commuters, dipstick housefraus racing SUV's, joyriding and the like. Until then, I just dismiss the tough talk and griping as so much hooey. :shrug:

 

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Naw, no real serious problem. Sure it's unsustainable while based on oil, bey we'll manage to change that with some serious effort applied.

 

You know I respect you . If you don't now you do now . . Another indicator shit has hit the fan is when Auditoriums that host sports events , theater productions and Musical events have empty seats then I will know things are real bad .

 

Oil won't suddenly dry up, but the ability to extract it or find it will get harder. As it does, the price will reflect this, and as it goes up, other technologies will look more attractive. We've know this for a long time, but we're a procrastinating species, and it's just so easy to not worry about it when oil is by far the cheapest thing around, even now.

The one saving grace is that the powers that be (OPEC et al) won't sell through their reserves at a cheap price...they're going to stretch the profit and supply for as long as they can, so that capitalistic greed will actually buy us time to find other things. If we're smart, we'll try and encourage those solutions before the market does, so they can be competitive with oil sooner.

 

Nothing can replace the oil. Technology isn't energy. While I don't think technology will suddenly end, there will be less and less investment in this area as the energy available to us diminishes.

 

"Modernization," here is being taken as a synonym for "industrialization?"

 

See Spidey has part of the puzzle . So consider all the things that are oil dependent . Fertilizers , drugs , tires , asphalt , plastic, you name it , goes on and on . The real question is are we going to find alternate energy in enough quantity so we can save all the other products that are oil dependent. So if peak oil is and oil is in decline it be a matter of time . Can the world change the out come ? I don't know ? Anybody can do it so they thought someone would do it so nobody did it . We better be nobodies doing it or as some builders would say " I just let it happen " and that is how it all gets screwed up . The whole thing of information being the save all catch all is a fallacy I believe . My facts are based in what Spidey is saying . You can not eat information or technology and it don't burn in the tank very well either . It might improve efficiency, but there is always a law of diminishing returns. There are four basic needs for human survival and technology is not on of them . Information is not one either . So lets say the whole world becomes educated and expects rewards for there investment in education . Now what ? Become a farmer cause it pays better , or go to work securing easements and mineral rights for technology relay stations and oil exploration . Those jobs are limited . Educated hamburger flippers

 

This thread is going in a good direction.

Originally I thought/felt creating an entire system based on oil was a poor idea, and any idiots that did this were foolish more-ons. However someone pointed out we'd be idiots not to have taken advantage of it....... so......... perhaps both are true, I think it allowed us a chance to develop technologies that allow for future energy development, that is a good thing. However it should be MUCH further along than it is today, infact we should've gotten away from oil after the great depression IMO. Now we're fucked and jobs won't mean shit when your fuel cost to get to work is so high it makes going pointless. Same thing with food transportation, why wouldn't we have just centralized food development in villages with surrounding ones connected by high speed rails thus allowing for efficient distribution?

As far as I'm concerned industrialization and modernization will FAIL and when it does all of us are fucked, nobody can grow food in cement (cities like LA, NY) everyone there will die of hunger......

Villages are where it's at in the future

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Yeah, we took the wealth of the earth, collected over eons, and had a giant party and some big wars.

We screwed the pooch, now we have to find better ways of doing things.

I *think* we'll be able to, but life might be harder...and the longer we continue to keep our heads up our butts as a society, the harder the transition is going to be to complete successfully.

Success isn't assured. Nor is it impossible. We either will...or we won't. I'm cautiously optimistic about it these days.

Agreeing with Stoni about the passive solar...

If I get my round tuit, I plan on making a version of one of these for our puny little winter-and just running a tube into the window from this:

http://www.energyboom.com/solar/cheap-diy-solar-collectors-made-recycled-soda-and-beer-cans

I imagine you could turn the whole south side of your house into such up north if you have southern exposure-that's some serious white-trash engineering there.

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Something I linked earlier...excess wind, water, and wave power capacity can be made to electrolyze hydrogen from water. Hydrogen is hard to store.
There is however, a process to convert it into methane.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100505113227.htm

Methane is natural gas. We already have infrastructure for natural gas. Conversion of existing vehicles costs about $500-you swap the tank and change the injector jets.

 

We've gone from animal power to water power to steam to coal to oil. We survived all those transitions. We'll survive the transition from oil to renewables.

 

You would think. But those other sources of energy were there waiting for us. And they were increasingly more convenient. This trend is about to end.

 

We are quite dependent on technology now; take away the technology and more than half the population of mankind will perish. The current trend of destructive modernization cannot continue, that we can agree on; but modernization of technology (along with sustainable development) is necessary for the survival of human beings, and increasingly as the population keeps growing.

 

Except that technology hasn't run out and there is more than enough oil, coal (convertible to oil) left** to get us through the next 100 years. The advancements in the next century will undoubtedly be greater than the last millennium.

~String

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**the US is the "Saudi Arabia" of coal. This says nothing about the sand and shale oil we're sitting on and the ol' fashioned crude we aren't mining in "protected areas" that's just sitting there. Don't fool yourself into believing we'll fret much about arctic wildlife when we're confronted with a lack of fuel, widgets, medicine and food.

 

Exactly.

 

I don't know about that. My roof is pretty convenient for me.

 

It was Reaganomics that halted investment in new technologies in energy production . The Department of interior was way on board with the Carter administration , but the economy was crashing big time and Reagan come along with his expansionist consumer based good time Charley plan of growth . Set up the 2 gate system with unions and production became the main focus. It created the Jonesers victim working social slave middle class that my generation is in the process of collapsing in. A lot of us are still in denial and can't understand the paradigm shift . Displaced big time . It is not a new thing . Think about those poor hunter gatherers when the Agriculture generation came along . There still screwed .

 

Sustainable development is a myth. What is sustainable development . Define it for Me would you please . It is a feel good gimmick created by Planners . O.K. consider this " Centralizing is the plan " Create more open space by putting a development wall around urban cores of cities . Limit urban wildlife interface . So why is the U.N. plan for Haiti to decentralize. Ah because centralizing is not sustainable and Haiti has shown to be a good example of why it is not . Not enough management of there environment out side of Port-Au Prince. I think I got a better plan . Integration with our environment. Be part of the environment. Be good stewards of our environment. The Native People of America did for 1000s of years . They managed the environment and integrated with it instead of turning there backs and wishing it all good . So first understand the environment then implement constructive planning to optimize health of that environment . Real science has to be done to find out what healthy environment means . I can tell you plain and clear the " Stay away from wilderness approach does not work and when coupled with fire suppression it becomes even more unhealthy . The mismanagement of Federal Wilderness Land is by far the most unhealthy . Then next comes State land as States know better about there own Micro localization than blanket policies of the Feds . Ranchers and Land Owners that work there property are next for there livelihood is dependent on a healthy environment. They will prosecute you if you come on there property and trash it up, drive off road or throw trash around , Horass Wildlife and what have you . I guess it all boils down to what you consider healthy though . If you consider massive decay and down fall burn ready giving off methane gasses from the decay of fire suppressed down fall waiting to burn in a fire storm like in 2000 and 2001 in the Bitter Root healthy then Yeah the Feds got the best managed lands . Ah Yeah , Don't look healthy to Me . I crawl threw it a lot . Land does recover fairly quickly after fires though. Native grasses grow and replace the over grown forest that was there before the fires. The trees are gone but the Elk and deer like the food . There is a lot more critters in the woods other than undulates. So here is the Idea in Management with prescribed burns. The Trees don't die and the undergrowth burns . Some lower branches might and some of the canopy might if the forest is dense enough . The Fire does not get hot enough to obtain scorch earth conditions. If you have fuel build up by unnatural conditions of human activity then it becomes a rich environment for scorch earth management and then nothing lives in the radius of the fire storms . No fear for it does rebound in about a 5 year process . You will start to see new growth the first year and after about 20 years it is hard for the layman to tell there was a catastrophic event. Except the big trees and dense forests are missing missing missing missing

 

Multiple posts Oh no . I want to make my stance more clear . Reduction in your carbon foot print and sustainable development are not necessarily same thing . It is one thing to be energy conservatively aware and quite a different thing to believe in sustainable development by forced central development into urban cores by incentivesing development and walling off an imaginary line around the urban core . Consider this : The planners that spin the indoctrination are planners and are dependent on development for there livelihood. Why would they spin sustainable development . If there is no development they are out of a job. Would you spin a web of deceit if your livelihood depended on it? Would you justify your actions to save your purpose in life?
Responsible Integration I believe is key . Reduced environmental impact is also Key . I don't think they have to be exclusive of each other .
Now I am not a builder anymore so you can't say I think this stuff cause of my own interests , or because you might think I am a logger like birch thought in the beginnings of Meeting Me . I don't really give a fuck if I ever build another house or anybody else does for that matter . I just want you all to take a second looky at what is happening so you can make a intelligent decision before you jump on the indoctrination band wagon of planners and there self interests