8 ms·

I wonder why so many people are only looking at the economic side of this DO THEY NOT REALIZE THE IMPLICATIONS FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND HOW WE USE FOSSIL FUELS?

I wonder why so many people are only looking at the economic side of this DO THEY NOT REALIZE THE IMPLICATIONS FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND HOW WE USE FOSSIL FUELS? We burn (no pun intended) through resources as fast as we want until there are none left. And then what?

Frozenlock 11y ago
> And then what? And then the price of the scarce resource will go up, pushing us towards alternative energy sources. And as time passes, we should have more efficient ways of harnessing those.
- zkhalique 11y ago
  By that time we might have already destroyed an ecosystem. It's not just resources coming in, but the entropy that comes out of doing useful work with them. Whether pollution, or great pacific garbage patch, or overfishing, etc. The invisible hand of the market hasn't been very great at solving externality problems. Neither has government, as an institution. What we should be doing is investing more in initiatives like the Virgin Earth Challenge to stave off collapse. But when it comes to overfishing, and other things ... I'm not sure we can do that. The best we can advocate is using condoms...
  - attachedbiscuit 11y ago
    Overpopulation isn't a problem. It's human desire for luxury, as is meat, as is 5 AC components for each room of your house. Problem is that the whole world cannot live as an average citizen of USA (when it comes to energy use, not the health care and the bad bits) but the whole world, when it realizes, wants exactly that.
- maerF0x0 11y ago
  Scarce resource might be clean air and land in a place that doesnt hit 120f daily.
- pyre 11y ago
  This line of logic says that it is impossible for us to come to any sort of "cliff" where we are unable to smoothly transition from one energy source to another (where the possible ensuing resource wars could prevent us from ever harnessing those alternative sources). It's basically a "nothing bad can happen because ECONOMICS!" answer.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    It does, and to do so it presumes that there will always be some readily available alternatives with smooth supply curves, and neglects transition costs.
    - zkhalique 11y ago
      It also ignores the output (garbage, buildup of entropy that destroys ecosystems)
    - douche 11y ago
      I've seen it referred to as the Adam's Law of Slow Moving Disasters http://blog.dilbert.com/post/102964934001/fact-checking-adams-law-of-slow-moving-disasters http://blog.dilbert.com/post/102964934001/fact-checking-adam...
mhurron 11y ago
Pretty clear the majority of people don't care. So just hope that when the music stops, you're already dead.
- alexqgb 11y ago
  And hope your children are dead too, and also your grandchildren.
  - hinkley 11y ago
    That escalated quickly.
  - mhurron 11y ago
    Bringing children into the world where you expect that as the future seems a little irresponsible.
- astrodust 11y ago
  As much as life extension technology is going to cause tremendous social conflict, it would certainly give people a better perspective on these things. Living roughly eighty years on average does frame things very narrowly. The Koch brothers, for example, aren't stuck with the legacy of their policies, they only care about making their mark. If they were stuck living with the consequences they might think differently.
attachedbiscuit 11y ago
Production of beef and lamb makes about 15% of greenhouse gases, not mentioning transport of it, or dairy. Lot of greenhouse gases are produced for energy use, heating, AC and similar. Problem is that we aren't really burning that much oil for our own personal transportation. We're burning oil on places where efficiency isn't a goal. Feeding a mammal to harvest meat or milk isn't efficient. We humans like meat, we support the industry and it keeps producing and transporting. Maybe giving up on a car once a week, or something similar is easy, but most of your burning comes through heating, AC, meat and dairy, and then transport. Transport is efficient, it's product of engineers. Mammals are product of evolution, they are not efficient in their production of meat and dairy. One will burn less much more if one changes the diet, not means of transportation.
- throwaway2048 11y ago
  transportation usage accounts for over 93%(!) of crude oil usage, and about 40% of overall greenhouse gas production.
  - throwaway2099 11y ago
    You are including industrial transportation into these numbers, when realistically, these numbers should be included in the accompanying industry. Personal transportation has a much lower footprint. http://www.wri.org/sites/default/files/world_greenhouse_gas_emissions_2005.pdf http://www.wri.org/sites/default/files/world_greenhouse_gas_...
beamatronic 11y ago
A huge world war, and then the survivors become farmers until the heat death of the universe

Frozenlock 11y ago

> And then what? And then the price of the scarce resource will go up, pushing us towards alternative energy sources. And as time passes, we should have more efficient ways of harnessing those.

zkhalique 11y ago
By that time we might have already destroyed an ecosystem. It's not just resources coming in, but the entropy that comes out of doing useful work with them. Whether pollution, or great pacific garbage patch, or overfishing, etc. The invisible hand of the market hasn't been very great at solving externality problems. Neither has government, as an institution. What we should be doing is investing more in initiatives like the Virgin Earth Challenge to stave off collapse. But when it comes to overfishing, and other things ... I'm not sure we can do that. The best we can advocate is using condoms...
- attachedbiscuit 11y ago
  Overpopulation isn't a problem. It's human desire for luxury, as is meat, as is 5 AC components for each room of your house. Problem is that the whole world cannot live as an average citizen of USA (when it comes to energy use, not the health care and the bad bits) but the whole world, when it realizes, wants exactly that.
maerF0x0 11y ago
Scarce resource might be clean air and land in a place that doesnt hit 120f daily.
pyre 11y ago
This line of logic says that it is impossible for us to come to any sort of "cliff" where we are unable to smoothly transition from one energy source to another (where the possible ensuing resource wars could prevent us from ever harnessing those alternative sources). It's basically a "nothing bad can happen because ECONOMICS!" answer.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  It does, and to do so it presumes that there will always be some readily available alternatives with smooth supply curves, and neglects transition costs.
  - zkhalique 11y ago
    It also ignores the output (garbage, buildup of entropy that destroys ecosystems)
  - douche 11y ago
    I've seen it referred to as the Adam's Law of Slow Moving Disasters http://blog.dilbert.com/post/102964934001/fact-checking-adams-law-of-slow-moving-disasters http://blog.dilbert.com/post/102964934001/fact-checking-adam...

mhurron 11y ago

Pretty clear the majority of people don't care. So just hope that when the music stops, you're already dead.

alexqgb 11y ago
And hope your children are dead too, and also your grandchildren.
- hinkley 11y ago
  That escalated quickly.
- mhurron 11y ago
  Bringing children into the world where you expect that as the future seems a little irresponsible.
astrodust 11y ago
As much as life extension technology is going to cause tremendous social conflict, it would certainly give people a better perspective on these things. Living roughly eighty years on average does frame things very narrowly. The Koch brothers, for example, aren't stuck with the legacy of their policies, they only care about making their mark. If they were stuck living with the consequences they might think differently.

attachedbiscuit 11y ago

Production of beef and lamb makes about 15% of greenhouse gases, not mentioning transport of it, or dairy. Lot of greenhouse gases are produced for energy use, heating, AC and similar. Problem is that we aren't really burning that much oil for our own personal transportation. We're burning oil on places where efficiency isn't a goal. Feeding a mammal to harvest meat or milk isn't efficient. We humans like meat, we support the industry and it keeps producing and transporting. Maybe giving up on a car once a week, or something similar is easy, but most of your burning comes through heating, AC, meat and dairy, and then transport. Transport is efficient, it's product of engineers. Mammals are product of evolution, they are not efficient in their production of meat and dairy. One will burn less much more if one changes the diet, not means of transportation.

throwaway2048 11y ago
transportation usage accounts for over 93%(!) of crude oil usage, and about 40% of overall greenhouse gas production.
- throwaway2099 11y ago
  You are including industrial transportation into these numbers, when realistically, these numbers should be included in the accompanying industry. Personal transportation has a much lower footprint. http://www.wri.org/sites/default/files/world_greenhouse_gas_emissions_2005.pdf http://www.wri.org/sites/default/files/world_greenhouse_gas_...

beamatronic 11y ago

A huge world war, and then the survivors become farmers until the heat death of the universe