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Peak Oil is real near term possibility, but they're is plenty of coal and natural gas still out there. Rare earth materials aren't actually that rare, they're only mined in China because that's where is cheapest. But the more important resources that are in real trouble is fresh water and arable land, and climate change is not gonna do nice things to either.
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Feb 10, 2017 12:37
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 09:09 |
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The thing about complaining about malthus is that the real issue isn't running out, it's low availability + bad usage. So let's talk land: the about of arable land is set to fall, thanks to climate change. The global population is also rising. We also have countries that are industrializing fast, and importantly, are shifting their diet to a more western meat-heavy style. Meat consumes a lot of resources to produce little food. So we have demand going up, supply going down. That's going to lead to massive price increases, and the poorest of the world are going to have a hard time affording food, because capitalism means chasing money, so exporting to the west is gonna mean more profit, in instead of exporting to the places that really need it, on account of them having no money. That's a recipe for massive starvation, social unrest and instability, as well as a massive migration pressure, for people in the global south to move north. Here's the twist: Look at what's happened, so far, with migrants from syria. What do you think is gonna happen, when millions of environmental refugees starting showing, up at the doorsteps of other countries? This problem will hit sooner than actually running out of oil.
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Feb 11, 2017 04:11
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Oil is an absolute necessity now, because most of the products of the 'green revolution' require oil. Or do you think pesticides and fertilizers make themselves? Or just think about the incredible mechanization of agriculture that we have. You can't turn the clock back, we have a lot more people alive now than we did in 1910, and that is basically off the back of oil discovery and usage.
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Feb 12, 2017 04:19
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Also talking about the morality of western consumption (and requiring it to 'exculpate') is 100% bullshit. Deploying moralism to solve climate change will absolutely fail, because high resource consumption is not a loving moral failing, it's the fairly standard desire to have a better quality of life. Moralizing about the 'evil west' is just a self-serving and self-righteous way to dodge the fact that people want better lives, yet the technology to give that to them is costly in terms of a specific set of resources. The developing world will eventually increase their consumption per capita to match the US, the issue is how that same quality of life can be delivered as cheaply and sustainably as possible. In essence, to invert the accusations of 'techno-fetishism' thrown around in this thread, this is a problem that can only be solved with the newer technology, which also concurrently means having the political will to develop that technology in the first place But we actually have to live up until the point that that happens, so that means adapting to circumstances, which means management of limited resources, notably fresh water and arable land, and the products that they are used to produce. Or, in other words, ban biofuels, ban cotton, replace all natural fibers with synthetic fibers, place limits or disincentives on meat production and especially large disincentives on using cropland to grow feed for animals, put water management schemes into place and regulate the activity of farmers to a greater degree. Also invest in better rain catchments and flooding protections, as well as drought protection measures, because you're going to get less rain but it'll probably be more extreme when it does happen.
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Feb 12, 2017 04:32
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Guess what tractors need to run. Also guess what the trucks that move the food around need to run. Also ammonia is only for nitrogen fertilizers, phosphorus and potassium has to be mined from the ground and then transported all across the world. That means oil. Like you keep pointing back to 'well humans were alive before oil', and yeah, not poo poo, but poo poo has changed since then. Populations have increased, supply chains have become more complicated, global shipping is a real thing now. You cannot turn the clock back.
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Feb 12, 2017 05:33
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The issue isn't necessarily running out of oil, it's an increase in cost, and the resulting knock on effects. Remember what I said about food price increases and how income inequality is going to make that a bigger problem than it needs to be? It's the same with oil. Okay, human society functioned without oil with 2 billion people - we have, what, 7 billion now? Then you've got the fact that cities, social structure, everything has changed since then. If global civilization was structured such that resources were distributed optimally, political malfunction wasn't an issue, conflict and resentment could easily be defused, then it would still be a big problem, but not one that necessarily ends industrial civilization as we know it. But none of that is true, we live in an exploitative capitalist system subdivided into competing states with varying levels of stability and popular accountability - what the gently caress do you think is going to happen when resources start 'running out'? It all gets talked out rationally? loving Nope. Politics and political-economy is going to make everything more complicated, and likely much worse. rudatron fucked around with this message at 18:01 on Feb 12, 2017 |
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Feb 12, 2017 17:58
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There's also real limits on the technological advancement that has occurred, and no easy way past then, and especially no easy way past them in scientific funding keeps getting cut, to make up for budget shortfalls, in this age of austerity. Let me give you an example. The majority of your food depends on plants, growing plants. If you were to get every single scientist into the same room, ask them to build a 'replacement' for a plant, could they design something as equally complex? No, they couldn't. Not in a 100 years could they even try, we're nowhere near that level of technical capability. Living things right now are far, far more complicated than your stupid smartphone or whatever, all human beings are doing is tinkering a bit with them to make them more useful. Part of this is increasing the 'harvest index' (the proportion of biomass that is a useful product) of plants, but you can't take that too far - you actually need like, roots and leaves and poo poo for the plant to grow. Part of that is using fertilizers, to meet all nutritional needs of the plant. Part of that is killing every other living thing in the field, with herbicides and pesticides, so said nutrients only go to the plants you want. But at the end of the day, the 'medium' you are working with is a loving plant, and in needs arable land, and water. You cannot innovate around that, you cannot push past that limit, because it's a fundamental limitation of the tool you're working with. As such, bringing up analogies with microprocessors or flight or whatever is missing the scale of the problem here. That's not to suggest that the problems are intractable, or that technology can't solve the problem - in a real sense, it has to, there's no other option. But you've got to be realistic about it, you can't be flippant about the problem, and you can't just dismiss it.
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Feb 12, 2017 18:12
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 09:09 |
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Owlofcreamcheese posted:That is true but that would be true no matter what. If a magic alien portal opened up that spewed forth infinity oil forever do you think we wouldn't just war nonstop about who owns the portal?
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Feb 12, 2017 18:15
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