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Unfortunately progress can only happen using the resources we have at our disposal. Currently we have an economy heavily based on hydrocarbons. There is a wide
by gonvaled 8y ago
Unfortunately progress can only happen using the resources we have at our disposal. Currently we have an economy heavily based on hydrocarbons. There is a wide consensus (unfortunately, not wide enough) that this is neither sustainable not desirable, so we are trying to come up with alternatives. Those alternatives are not going to appear from thin air: we need to transition, as fast as we can can, to the next paradigm.
I think you underestimate how difficult is to change a country-wide economy. The huge challenges involved is what underpins the whole peak-oil movement [1] - irrespective of whether the theory is correct or not, the challenges posed by a big scale energy source transition are very well described.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil
- provolone 8y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus Historical analysis tends to disagree with the underlying philosophy of peak oil.
- gonvaled 8y agoI am not claiming anything in favor or against the theory of peak oil. I am just saying that the challenges posed by a technological overhaul are very well described in the Peak Oil literature.
- tim333 8y agoMalthus's ideas was something different - that people will breed till they run out of food which basically hasn't happened. People think of different things with peak oil. At the basic level production will peak - with a finite resource you can't keep increasing extraction for ever. On the other hand people sometimes link it to running out of oil which probably won't happen - instead we'll move to renewables because they will be cheaper and greener.
- provolone 8y agoJust as Malthus observed that the land in the British Isles was a finite resource. Malthusianism is a trope in macroeconomics.