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> When is the public going to realize the O&G industry is quite possibly the worst conglomerate that we have ever seen. From an ecological standpoint, I'd tend

> When is the public going to realize the O&G industry is quite possibly the worst conglomerate that we have ever seen. From an ecological standpoint, I'd tend to agree. Without them, we'd still have a sub-one billion human population, the pollution level of the 18th C., plus you probably couldn't type that comment without winding up the computer first. With most of the easy EROI gone, you do have to wonder how humanity can crawl back up from it's next collapse.

bumby 5y ago
Based on my layman’s knowledge, it does seem that fossil fuel energy companies have been bad-faith actors. Or, at the very least, reacted predictably to poorly aligned incentives. It reminds me of a Matt Damon quote from Syriana [1]. To a certain extent, that’s all of us. We are squandering one of the greatest resources to accelerate technology because it’s been so relatively easy to pull energy from the earth that we’ve been lulled into complacency. I sometimes wonder if our level of technological advancement would even be possible without fossil fuels. If not, and we don’t actively invest in means away from it, I also wonder if that advancement is just a flash-in-the-pan on the geological time scale. [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AwQKhvweL2A https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AwQKhvweL2A
- kingsuper20 5y ago
  >I sometimes wonder if our level of technological advancement would even be possible without fossil fuels. I don't. I'd say that fossil fuels were absolutely required. Admittedly there was a ramp-up due to water-powered manufacturing and steam engines run by throwing in chunks of wood.
  - bumby 5y ago
    It does seem like much of society is predicated on burning things. I feel like we have an opportunity to change that paradigm should since the nuclear age began, but burning things is just so easy it makes us complacent
    - kingsuper20 5y ago
      It seems to me that any system predicated on population levels over the pre-industrial standard are a sketchy proposition. Even at the pre-industrial level, the environmental load has been high. Mediterranean goat deserts, death of large Pleistocene animals in the Americas, whale hunting. You could still have nuclear power, microelectronics, solar energy in a world with a whole lot less human meat roaming around on it.
      - pjc50 5y ago
        In the pre-contraception era, the human population was almost by definition at the environmental limit; limited by starvation, disease, wars, and so on. Just as all wild creatures are. Anti-contraceptionists are almost worse than climate change deniers.
        kingsuper20 5y ago
        Maybe we don't need contraception, we just need predators.
- wrs 5y ago
  I think of it like this: fossil fuels were like the first-stage rocket for accelerating technological civilization. It was loud and wasteful, contained most of our fuel, and we burned it in a hurry to get halfway to orbit. The question is, what’s the second stage to orbit? Or are we just on a ballistic trajectory?

bumby 5y ago

Based on my layman’s knowledge, it does seem that fossil fuel energy companies have been bad-faith actors. Or, at the very least, reacted predictably to poorly aligned incentives. It reminds me of a Matt Damon quote from Syriana [1]. To a certain extent, that’s all of us. We are squandering one of the greatest resources to accelerate technology because it’s been so relatively easy to pull energy from the earth that we’ve been lulled into complacency. I sometimes wonder if our level of technological advancement would even be possible without fossil fuels. If not, and we don’t actively invest in means away from it, I also wonder if that advancement is just a flash-in-the-pan on the geological time scale. [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AwQKhvweL2A https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AwQKhvweL2A

kingsuper20 5y ago
>I sometimes wonder if our level of technological advancement would even be possible without fossil fuels. I don't. I'd say that fossil fuels were absolutely required. Admittedly there was a ramp-up due to water-powered manufacturing and steam engines run by throwing in chunks of wood.
- bumby 5y ago
  It does seem like much of society is predicated on burning things. I feel like we have an opportunity to change that paradigm should since the nuclear age began, but burning things is just so easy it makes us complacent
  - kingsuper20 5y ago
    It seems to me that any system predicated on population levels over the pre-industrial standard are a sketchy proposition. Even at the pre-industrial level, the environmental load has been high. Mediterranean goat deserts, death of large Pleistocene animals in the Americas, whale hunting. You could still have nuclear power, microelectronics, solar energy in a world with a whole lot less human meat roaming around on it.
    - pjc50 5y ago
      In the pre-contraception era, the human population was almost by definition at the environmental limit; limited by starvation, disease, wars, and so on. Just as all wild creatures are. Anti-contraceptionists are almost worse than climate change deniers.
      - kingsuper20 5y ago
        Maybe we don't need contraception, we just need predators.
wrs 5y ago
I think of it like this: fossil fuels were like the first-stage rocket for accelerating technological civilization. It was loud and wasteful, contained most of our fuel, and we burned it in a hurry to get halfway to orbit. The question is, what’s the second stage to orbit? Or are we just on a ballistic trajectory?