> From: Chuck Norcutt <chucknorcutt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> He may be a fine engineer but predicting only a 5 year future for
> hydrocarbon fuels and engines indicates he needs some remedial work in
> sociology, psychology, political science and economics. :-)
Or perhaps, just perhaps, he is one of a very few who are actually paying
attention and who are not in denial.
I'm afraid that "hard science" like physics trumps all the "soft sciences" you
note in your list, Chuck.
Even the stodgy US EIA, which tends to parrot the petrochemical industry line,
has recently admitted that the world has passed the peak of oil production, and
that it's all downhill from here.
And just today, oil cracked $100 a barrel for the first time since $147/barrel
oil plunged the world into a global recession of a magnitude not seen since the
Great Depression. I give the current weak "recovery" no more than 18 months
before the resulting increase in economic activity causes us to once again
bounce off the glass ceiling of energy constraints.
It's simple physics: you need growing energy to grow an economy. Adam Smith's
"invisible hand" cannot create something that doesn't exist. Economics, as we
know it, is an open-ended system stuck on a closed-loop Earth.
Now you may well recall the time before we were consuming 85 million barrels of
oil a day as "not so bad," a time when there were plenty of cars and oil-driven
stuff -- at least for Americans and a few select others. But there were many
fewer humans around then, and most of them were not clamouring for the
oil-soaked stuff that the masses of India and China now expect as their
birthright, just as your parents expected for you.
Where the "soft sciences" come in is in how humans will choose to deal with the
constraints imposed by limits to growth. Look at what's happening in Egypt. It
started with food protests, and today, food is pretty much made out of
petroleum. In ten years or less, the same process could be playing out in
Berlin, Tokyo, and Washington.
Pay attention. Don't be in denial. Make plans. Or simply carry on as usual, and
suffer the consequences.
----------------
It is one thing to make a mistake, and quite another thing not to admit it.
People will forgive mistakes, because mistakes are usually of the mind,
mistakes of judgment. But people will not easily forgive the mistakes of the
heart, the ill intention, the bad motives, the prideful justifying cover-up of
the first mistake. -- Stephen R. Covey
:::: Jan Steinman, EcoReality Co-op ::::
--
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