> From: John Hudson <OM4T@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> Jan .................. you're overdosed on Thomas Robert Malthus !
Malthus did not foresee the one-time gift of fossil energy. I don't
see his work as fundamentally flawed; just off by two hundred years.
Could there be another such gift waiting in the wings? Could cold
fusion pan out? Could dark energy be harnessed? Could Andromoden extra-
terrestrials land and give humans the secret of the Andromoden energy
source?
Perhaps so. But I wouldn't bet on it.
But just for the sake of argument, let's say we somehow come up with
some way of continuing to expand energy usage by 2% every year. As
Stephen Hawking put it, by the year 2500, the entire land surface of
the planet will be covered, shoulder-to-shoulder, by human beings, and
the entire planet will glow a dull red from our waste heat. Or as
Garrett Hardin put it, "Given an infinite source of energy, population
growth still produces an inescapable problem. The problem of the
acquisition of energy is replaced by the problem of its dissipation."
See, I overdose on much more than Malthus. In fact, I've never
actually read Malthus; there are much better, more precise, peer-
reviewed modern versions. I prefer the ecologist HT Odum, historian
Arnold Toynbee, sociologist William Catton, and anthropologist Joseph
Tainter. And don't forget Dmitry Orlov and John Michael Greer.
Sneering at Malthus has become fashionable among those who feel
entitled to the American way of life. But among those who make a
living studying such things, there is near-consensus that a big fall
is on the horizon -- unless, deus ex machina, a miracle occurs...
:::: You know what? What makes our economy grow is energy. And
Americans are used to going to the gas tank, and when they put that
hose in their, uh, tank, and when I do it, I wanna get gas out of it.
And when I turn the light switch on, I want the lights to go on, and I
don't want somebody to tell me I gotta change my way of living to
satisfy them. Because this is America, and this is something we've
worked our way into, and the American people are entitled to it, and
if we're going improve our standard of living, you have to consume
more energy. -- Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) ::::
:::: Jan Steinman, http://www.VeggieVanGogh.com ::::
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