Peak Water: Until Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head

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Translation: I don't want to change my behavior one iota, so I will ridicule those who point out the impending involuntary collapse of modern society.
 
RJBeery said:
I think we're all ignoring the elephant in the room: PEAK SUNLIGHT. Our sun is 4.5 billion years old, and in another few billion years it will have reached its life span midpoint! Then we're all F&CKED!! :eek: We'd better start conservation efforts immediately!! I mean, it's ALWAYS better to completely surrender to all forms of anti-consumerist propaganda, right? It's like political versions of Pascal's Wager...except these usually have huge and immediate financial consequences.

The day I see solutions to these problems that don't involve enormous political power grabs and socialist global wealth redistribution is the day I'll remove my fingers from my ears and sell my Hummer; until then you can kiss my ass...:cheers:
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My reccomendation would be to buy stocks in sunscreen companies.
 
He's right but for the wrong reasons. Also, the collapse might many years to fully realize. We are running into the limits of resources on all levels combined with a failure of society to comprehend the problem or form coherent solutions.
 
spidergoat said:
He's right but for the wrong reasons. Also, the collapse might many years to fully realize. We are running into the limits of resources on all levels combined with a failure of society to comprehend the problem or form coherent solutions.
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You mean, resources like manure-free sidewalks?:roflmao:
Nineteenth-century cities depended on thousands of horses for their daily functioning. All transport, whether of goods or people, was drawn by horses. London in 1900 had 11,000 cabs, all horse-powered. There were also several thousand buses, each of which required 12 horses per day, a total of more than 50,000 horses. In addition, there were countless carts, drays, and wains, all working constantly to deliver the goods needed by the rapidly growing population of what was then the largest city in the world. Similar figures could be produced for any great city of the time.*

The problem of course was that all these horses produced huge amounts of manure. A horse will on average produce between 15 and 35 pounds of manure per day. Consequently, the streets of nineteenth-century cities were covered by horse manure. This in turn attracted huge numbers of flies, and the dried and ground-up manure was blown everywhere. In New York in 1900, the population of 100,000 horses produced 2.5 million pounds of horse manure per day, which all had to be swept up and disposed of. (See Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 [New York: Oxford University Press, 1999]).

In 1898 the first international urban-planning conference convened in New York. It was abandoned after three days, instead of the scheduled ten, because none of the delegates could see any solution to the growing crisis posed by urban horses and their output.

The problem did indeed seem intractable. The larger and richer that cities became, the more horses they needed to function. The more horses, the more manure. Writing in the Times of London in 1894, one writer estimated that in 50 years every street in London would be buried under nine feet of manure. Moreover, all these horses had to be stabled, which used up ever-larger areas of increasingly valuable land. And as the number of horses grew, ever-more land had to be devoted to producing hay to feed them (rather than producing food for people), and this had to be brought into cities and distributed—by horse-drawn vehicles. It seemed that urban civilization was doomed.
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Doomed, DOOMED I TELL YOU!!!!!:runaway:
 
I see. Since we suddenly found coal and oil and no longer had to use horses, you are saying that at some point in the future, we will also find a new source of energy? I will believe it and modify my opinion when I see it. Until then it's just a product of faith. Our successes in the past are part of the problem, it has given us an arrogance that technology will solve all our problems. You never had to grow up in the era of horses, so you are in a sense spoiled. All our lives we got energy cheaply and easily (with a small blip in the 1970's). That era is about to come to a close and no one is prepared for it.
 
We "suddenly found coal and oil"?? You mean, we didn't develop and refine their uses over many decades...just as we're doing with nuclear and solar and wind and hydro natural gas and every other potentially viable energy source out there? It's like you have this vision of Jed Clampett shooting the ground, discovering that magic Texas Tea, then we apparently continue to suck it out of the ground with a giant juice-pack straw until...one day it's just GONE! Bam! No more oil, and then we're screwed!

No. In terms of oil and coal (AND POTABLE WATER) availability, the free market actually DOES take care of it. The price goes up and our usage goes down. Now, if you want to discuss the externalities of pollution that's a different story, but all of this crap about peak-oil, peak-coal, peak-water is just that: CRAP.
 
I was simplifying it for the purposes of discussion. No combination of alternative energy will add up to the energy we get from oil. I don't blame you for not knowing this, it is in the interest of all those industries to paint the best possible picture of their future. Technology isn't energy. And if you haven't noticed, there isn't a lot of capital available these days for investments in alternative energy. The financial picture will only get worse with peak oil. Peak oil isn't the total absence of oil, but rather the point of maximum production after which supply will never be able to meet demand. I'm not as concerned about pollution, since that problem will take care of itself. Your attitude towards energy is probably the same as held by the Native Americans regarding the buffalo, and look what happened to them. The Mayan civilization also likely disappeared because they used up the water supply. Now I'm not saying that we are doomed as a species, that would be ridiculous. We will survive, but it's far from certain the United States will.
 
Wow man, too many places to go with this. If finances get worse after peak oil then investments in alternatives will naturally go up. And what's this stuff about supply "never" meeting demand? By which mechanism do you think the invisible hand moves? What you're really saying is we need to conserve oil now via artificial constraints or else we'll be forced to conserve oil in the future via natural economic forces. What's the difference?? You apparently believe that technology will not save us and that alternative energy sources could never replace oil, so WHAT THE HELL are you proposing?

I'm convinced that some people simply need to believe in impending doom.
 
"WHAT THE HELL are you proposing?"

Managed contraction. It's not doom unless you think that the lack of a personal car is equivalent to the zombie apocalypse. I propose rebuilding our passenger rail system, managing development to encourage density with the aesthetics that makes people actually want to live there, revitalizing our waterways, converting the suburbs to farms. But most of all being aware of the reality of our situation.
 
spidergoat said:
"WHAT THE HELL are you proposing?"

Managed contraction. It's not doom unless you think that the lack of a personal car is equivalent to the zombie apocalypse. I propose rebuilding our passenger rail system, managing development to encourage density with the aesthetics that makes people actually want to live there, revitalizing our waterways, converting the suburbs to farms. But most of all being aware of the reality of our situation.
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Exactly. You want to artificially manage society. You want government to invest more in infrastructure, you want to dictate how people live, asking them to "make do with less" and if they would just listen to the government all of our problems would magically go away. In the end, the utopia you seek is just as much a fantasy as the 2012 Mayan Apocalypse, and now you can appreciate why I said
anti-consumerist propaganda...enormous political power grabs and socialist global wealth redistribution...
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We'll just agree to disagree. I claim things will be just fine and that the markets will manage our energy resources on their own, while you claim that unless we "hand over our wallets, our car keys and our freedoms immediately" we'll all suffocate in 9 feet of horse manure. Well...I'm not selling my Hummer just yet. :D
 
Society itself is artificial and has always been managed. It's just that it's managed now to maximize profits and not beneficial outcomes for people. I propose to spend less on infrastructure. We don't need high speed rail, we need normal 75mph rail that can use existing railways. Rail requires less maintenance than the national highway system, to say nothing of the money we waste on having to buy a personal car (or if you are a real cretin, a Hummer). You are the embodiment of magical thinking, not me. You are the one with the religion of the free market, not me. You wouldn't fight WWII without the central coordination of government, why should we try to manage one of the biggest challenges humanity is facing in recent times without some kind of organization? Oh, I forget, we can't because you have a word "socialism" which means we can't do anything to face the future rationally.
 
Well, I respect that you admit your Socialist perspective; most environmentalists will do everything to obscure their ulterior political motives. But make no mistake, belief in the Free Market and belief in Socialism are BOTH forms of religion relying largely on faith. The largest difference being, of course, that Socialism was vetted and debunked back in the 20th century. Yours is a false idol, my friend...
 
I don't have any obscure motives. It doesn't even have anything to do with the environment necessarily. It's about preventing harm to our society and it's people by having a rational view of the present situation. My socialism is no different than the concept enshrined in the constitution that the government's job is to improve the general welfare. I don't care what you do, you will be the victim of your own ignorance.
 
I agree with spidergoat in the sense that our governments are poorly designed to head off crisis. We are ruled by the greed of the average voters. If any politician try to make a change that will tax people too much they will be shown the door. I will use Obamacare as an example; even though it is good for the majority of Americans people who are comfortably insured already will dislike seeing smaller paychecks because of the taxation. I predict Obama will win the next election, but I think Obamacare will die in the following administration.

Water is already a crisis in many countries, and it appears a viable solution is to let their populations die off. Let us hope our political systems can handle and have open eyes towards impending shortages.
 
It could very well be that the government will have no role in managing contraction because it will cease to have any legitimacy in the eyes of the people.
 
...you admit your Socialist perspective; most environmentalists will do everything to obscure their ulterior political motives..
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I note that you appear to be unfamiliar with the term "ad hominum" in the course of a logical argument. Please look it up and act accordingly in the future. It will garner you some of the respect that you appear to lack at the moment. :eek:
 
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