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I have never subscribed to any of the alarmist theories and I'm glad to see the data backs up what I've always known intuitively.

Can you give a short rundown? Don't want to regret 60 minutes :/

It seemed pretty good to me.

One thing that always confuses me when this stuff comes up is the "extreme poverty" bar always being static. In a finite world, with supply/demand and inflation etc shouldnt it be moving as well? That $1 benchmark is going to have ever lower buying power over 50 or 100 years afterall.

What's this? More Malthusian doom saying? Been there done that.

Actually, it's a pretty decent show. Give it a look and you'll be surprised in both the quality and the message.

My issue isn't that it's not interesting or of low quality, but that what it presents doesn't really prove it's conclusion. Its basically "things ain't looking good DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!" It's the same old same old. A bunch of doom saying based on an unfounded assumption that we are going to run out of resources... That we never run out of.

It's not a "certain degree of uncertainty." It's virtually completel uncertainly.

I read an interesting piece a little while ago, making the point that people have talked about oil and other finite resources as being just about to run out in the near future… for about a hundred years now. Oil is finite in the way the Pacific Ocean is finite, and no-one is going to start swimming the Pacific expecting to reach the other side any minute now.

The other interesting insight the article made was that we’ve never actually run out of any finite resource – it gets more expensive to acquire but we’ve never gotten close to actually straight up having no more of it. In contrast, we have exhausted, or are very close to exhausting all kinds of renewable resources like timber and fish.

I'm not sure there's a political or ideological conclusion to be drawn from that, but it's an idea that's really stuck with me.

 LordofHats wrote:
What's this? More Malthusian doom saying? Been there done that.

I haven't been able to watch the video. Is it really Malthusian trap stuff?

The pretext of the video is about the development of African and Asian economies, and pretty much yes. It's not quite as doomy as your typical Malthusian nonsense, but he trots out most of the same arguments and strings them together in a way that continually leaves the question begging.

 sebster wrote:
I read an interesting piece a little while ago, making the point that people have talked about oil and other finite resources as being just about to run out in the near future… for about a hundred years now. Oil is finite in the way the Pacific Ocean is finite, and no-one is going to start swimming the Pacific expecting to reach the other side any minute now.

Just got done with an Environmental Geology class. I don't think it's so much the resource being "finite in the way the Pacific Ocean is finite" it's that, as time goes on, the oil companies and scientists continually progress and come up with new ways of finding oil, and extracting it (see: fracking)

According to that geology professor, the fear of running out of oil in the mid-90s was actually very real in certain circles, but only insofar as there weren't many economic means of extracting some of the newly found oil fields/shales.

Combine continuing technology with means of transforming other materials into oil products, and it greatly expands what's out there, and what's economically viable and usable. For instance, she regularly talked about processes by which we can turn natural gas into gasoline fuel, and oil and other oil based products.

 LordofHats wrote:
MIts basically "things ain't looking good DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!" It's the same old same old. A bunch of doom saying based on an unfounded assumption that we are going to run out of resources...

That is actually not what the video is about. You really should watch it.

 sebster wrote:
I haven't been able to watch the video. Is it really Malthusian trap stuff?

No. He discusses the concern at one point but the video does not argue for it and, in fact, provides evidence against it.

 Breotan wrote:

That is actually not what the video is about. You really should watch it.

You can't just thrw a 60 minutes video at people and expect them to watch it.

 Breotan wrote:
He discusses the concern at one point but the video does not argue for it and, in fact, provides evidence against it.

Hand waving away the commonly recognized population argument doesn't really change trotting out the fossil fuel and income arguments (Malthusianism is not strictly an argument about population growth).

Namely my issue with the video is the open ended nature of how he ends most of his talking points (and the video itself). He says "it'll be okay" but to me the video is constantly begging the question.

I calls it hows I sees it!

 sebster wrote:


The other interesting insight the article made was that we’ve never actually run out of any finite resource – it gets more expensive to acquire but we’ve never gotten close to actually straight up having no more of it. In contrast, we have exhausted, or are very close to exhausting all kinds of renewable resources like timber and fish.
?

Emeralds are the closest thing (not living) we have come to exhausting and we manufacture an equivalent of them now. I guess the same would happen with oil.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Breotan wrote:

That is actually not what the video is about. You really should watch it.

You can't just thrw a 60 minutes video at people and expect them to watch it.

Especially one which at face value is sort of like a 60 min video about the reptilian overlord's plan for America.

 LordofHats wrote:
My issue isn't that it's not interesting or of low quality, but that what it presents doesn't really prove it's conclusion. Its basically "things ain't looking good DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!" It's the same old same old. A bunch of doom saying based on an unfounded assumption that we are going to run out of resources... That we never run out of.

It's not a "certain degree of uncertainty." It's virtually completel uncertainly.

Yeah I remember about 5 or so years ago doomsayers were saying we are running out of food because china is running out of rice and everyone will die!!! Yet I still bought 20 pound bags of rice every time I needed to and still to this day an buying them for pretty cheap. Fracking wack jobs

 LordofHats wrote:
What's this? More Malthusian doom saying? Been there done that.

Exalted for mentioning Malthus!

 Bullockist wrote:

 sebster wrote:


The other interesting insight the article made was that we’ve never actually run out of any finite resource – it gets more expensive to acquire but we’ve never gotten close to actually straight up having no more of it. In contrast, we have exhausted, or are very close to exhausting all kinds of renewable resources like timber and fish.
?

Emeralds are the closest thing (not living) we have come to exhausting and we manufacture an equivalent of them now. I guess the same would happen with oil.

We'll come up with a way to make a practical biofuel long before we actually run out of natural oil. We're actually really close.

And we'll come up with practical batteries to switch all vehicles to electric before any of this becomes a major concern. Hopefully nuclear power gets revitalized and destigmatized too.


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 KingCracker wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
My issue isn't that it's not interesting or of low quality, but that what it presents doesn't really prove it's conclusion. Its basically "things ain't looking good DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!" It's the same old same old. A bunch of doom saying based on an unfounded assumption that we are going to run out of resources... That we never run out of.

It's not a "certain degree of uncertainty." It's virtually completel uncertainly.

Yeah I remember about 5 or so years ago doomsayers were saying we are running out of food because china is running out of rice and everyone will die!!! Yet I still bought 20 pound bags of rice every time I needed to and still to this day an buying them for pretty cheap. Fracking wack jobs

The World's not even close to running out of food, or arable land, either. All food problems are caused by logistical or spatial issues, usually the growing population outstripping its local production and not having enough logistical infrastructure or money to import food.

Again, technology will only increase our ability to produce.

 Breotan wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
MIts basically "things ain't looking good DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!" It's the same old same old. A bunch of doom saying based on an unfounded assumption that we are going to run out of resources...

That is actually not what the video is about. You really should watch it.

If we watch it will you then tell us what the super secret Netflix series is that is so bad that you can't tell us what it is?

I'm not worried about the environment.

I don't have kids.

It just needs to last about 40 more years.

*tosses McDonald's wrapper on the ground*

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Bullockist wrote:

 sebster wrote:


The other interesting insight the article made was that we’ve never actually run out of any finite resource – it gets more expensive to acquire but we’ve never gotten close to actually straight up having no more of it. In contrast, we have exhausted, or are very close to exhausting all kinds of renewable resources like timber and fish.
?

Emeralds are the closest thing (not living) we have come to exhausting and we manufacture an equivalent of them now. I guess the same would happen with oil.

We'll come up with a way to make a practical biofuel long before we actually run out of natural oil. We're actually really close.

And we'll come up with practical batteries to switch all vehicles to electric before any of this becomes a major concern. Hopefully nuclear power gets revitalized and destigmatized too.

It's actually incredible what a difference that would make. Even as a temporary measure, nuclear fission is basically the best method we have for generating power at the moment.

 -Shrike- wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Bullockist wrote:

 sebster wrote:


The other interesting insight the article made was that we’ve never actually run out of any finite resource – it gets more expensive to acquire but we’ve never gotten close to actually straight up having no more of it. In contrast, we have exhausted, or are very close to exhausting all kinds of renewable resources like timber and fish.
?

Emeralds are the closest thing (not living) we have come to exhausting and we manufacture an equivalent of them now. I guess the same would happen with oil.

We'll come up with a way to make a practical biofuel long before we actually run out of natural oil. We're actually really close.

And we'll come up with practical batteries to switch all vehicles to electric before any of this becomes a major concern. Hopefully nuclear power gets revitalized and destigmatized too.

It's actually incredible what a difference that would make. Even as a temporary measure, nuclear fission is basically the best method we have for generating power at the moment.

Why would most governments want that? It would mean actually admitting that Canada's been made the global scapegoat for being the filthiest polluters of the developed world.

 Grey Templar wrote:

We'll come up with a way to make a practical biofuel long before we actually run out of natural oil. We're actually really close.

And we'll come up with practical batteries to switch all vehicles to electric before any of this becomes a major concern. Hopefully nuclear power gets revitalized and destigmatized too.

I've read up a bit on biofuels, and I think there are still simply too many problems with them to truly rival or even replace oil.

Initially, farmers had to grow a specific breed of corn that wasn't grown for human/livestock consumption. This had the effect of causing many farmers to stop growing corn for food, simply because there was more money in growing "fuel". This in turn had the effect of causing the cost of corn at the markets to go up because there was "less" available.

The industry has progressed now, to the point where they no longer use the corn itself, which is good for food prices, however they DO still use the corn stalks after harvest. Traditionally, those stalks are left to fallow/rot to provide nutrients into the soil until next planting season. Having grown up with cousins who raised a bit of corn, I've been told that those stalks and rotting vegetation provides better nutrients than any chemical spray, powder or additive that certain companies try to sell. Removing all of something that provides sustenance to the soil seems like a bad idea, having studied a bit of American history, I know a bit about the Dust Bowl, and can easily see how that issue may spring up again, even if it's in a milder form.

While batteries being more practical, there's still the issue of where that electricity comes from, since many parts of the US still provide bulk electricity by way of coal or gas plants.


I've long been a "Fan" of nuclear power. Even with the perception of it being dangerous, it's still the safest and cleanest form of electrical generation we have, especially if we were to implement the plans of restructuring/reusing the fuel. The type of reactor that most Western countries use have the potential to generate energy along three stages... The first stage produces the most waste, second stage uses that waste and produces less, and the third stage uses the waste from the second stage and has been estimated that if it were used, would produce only one 55 gallon drum of hazardous waste. Opponents to this method often cite the "terrorism" aspect since it's been long theorized that if some group were to get ahold of the waste from the 1st or 2nd stages, theyd successfully be able to make a dirty bomb.


Ultimately, yeah, I sincerely hope that nuclear power comes back into "vogue" for mass power generation, I think if it's done right, it could help alleviate some of the water stress in some places going through drought. (not fix, just help, maybe)

 Grey Templar wrote:

We'll come up with a way to make a practical biofuel long before we actually run out of natural oil. We're actually really close.

And we'll come up with practical batteries to switch all vehicles to electric before any of this becomes a major concern. Hopefully nuclear power gets revitalized and destigmatized too.

Whatever happened to the push to use cooking oils in diesel vehicles? I mean, I'm not sure you REALLY want to drive around with your car smelling like fries, but multiple tons of cooking oil get used every day, why not utilize it a second time?

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Just got done with an Environmental Geology class. I don't think it's so much the resource being "finite in the way the Pacific Ocean is finite" it's that, as time goes on, the oil companies and scientists continually progress and come up with new ways of finding oil, and extracting it (see: fracking)

According to that geology professor, the fear of running out of oil in the mid-90s was actually very real in certain circles, but only insofar as there weren't many economic means of extracting some of the newly found oil fields/shales.

Combine continuing technology with means of transforming other materials into oil products, and it greatly expands what's out there, and what's economically viable and usable. For instance, she regularly talked about processes by which we can turn natural gas into gasoline fuel, and oil and other oil based products.

The fear of running out of oil has been very real for more than 100 years. In 1910 they thought they'd hit peak oil. What has been missed time and again is that oil shortages lead to price increases, which makes viable previously non-economic sources of oil.

It's kind of a strange thing, that all at once we've believed we would run out of oil, and simultaneously unable to fathom that oil might one day cost double or triple it's current cost per barrel, let alone 10 times or more.

It's also why the opposition to renewable energy is so short sighted - people have pointed out, quite rightly, that oil and other fossil fuels are a much cheaper source of energy in almost all situations, but they've missed that long term the price of oil can only go up, while most renewables are cheaper year on year.


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 Breotan wrote:
No. He discusses the concern at one point but the video does not argue for it and, in fact, provides evidence against it.

Okay. I will try and find some time this weekend to sit down and watch the video.


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 Bullockist wrote:
Emeralds are the closest thing (not living) we have come to exhausting and we manufacture an equivalent of them now. I guess the same would happen with oil.

As I understand (which I admit may not be much at all) emeralds are still out there, its just that finding more is far too expensive compared to making them.

But we have exhausted a lot of fish stocks, and a lot of a forests. These are nominally renewable resources.


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 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
I've long been a "Fan" of nuclear power. Even with the perception of it being dangerous, it's still the safest and cleanest form of electrical generation we have, especially if we were to implement the plans of restructuring/reusing the fuel.

I think it's a fascinating thing that people are so hyper-aware of the damage a nuclear plant might do, but so indifferent to the damage a coal plant does every single day.

Biofuels work out to be a crazy-inefficient way of powering vehicles. It's simply not even remotely close to being viable. If we converted every single acre of farmable land in the entire world to producing biofuels, we wouldn't even produce enough to meet the USA's fuel demands, let alone the world's. And keep in mind that means basically eliminating all agricultural food production in favor of making fuel. Yeah, there's a reason it didn't take off. It's not like, say, solar power where the technology just needs to advance, or wind where it only intermittently produces power so it can only supplement other power sources rather than be a primary source. Biofuels are simply not feasible.

 Alpharius wrote:

 Breotan wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
MIts basically "things ain't looking good DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!" It's the same old same old. A bunch of doom saying based on an unfounded assumption that we are going to run out of resources...

That is actually not what the video is about. You really should watch it.

If we watch it will you then tell us what the super secret Netflix series is that is so bad that you can't tell us what it is?

No. You're not going to watch this video anyway so I might as well just let you stumble blindly into it.

sebster wrote:
It's also why the opposition to renewable energy is so short sighted - people have pointed out, quite rightly, that oil and other fossil fuels are a much cheaper source of energy in almost all situations, but they've missed that long term the price of oil can only go up, while most renewables are cheaper year on year.

But we have exhausted a lot of fish stocks, and a lot of a forests. These are nominally renewable resources.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
I've long been a "Fan" of nuclear power. Even with the perception of it being dangerous, it's still the safest and cleanest form of electrical generation we have, especially if we were to implement the plans of restructuring/reusing the fuel.

I think it's a fascinating thing that people are so hyper-aware of the damage a nuclear plant might do, but so indifferent to the damage a coal plant does every single day.

Some of the arguments against some of the renewable options are just bonkers... Remember a few years back, Mass. wanted to put a bunch of wind turbines 1 mile+ off shore of Cape Cod, and Ted Kennedy fought it tooth and nail until it died, because of "aesthetics". The thing with many renewables, particularly solar and wind, is that they are just so limited. There's no guarantee that the wind will blow, so companies who want turbine farms need to make sure they are in regularly windy areas (for instance, in Oregon they are all over the Columbia Gorge area, because it's ALWAYS windy there). In many places in the US, solar won't work as a primary source, because it isn't sunny enough. And in places where it is sunny enough, environmentalists have fought off many of the sites for large solar "farms". One option that's been presented, and regularly shot down, is using solar panels on residential houses, not as primary power, but to supplement what power is coming in. The issue I can see with that is that you're not really "cutting" what the big plant produces, you're just using less of it.

Probably the biggest detractor for alternative power, lies with the power companies themselves. In most parts, especially in the US, the "wind farm" company is not the same as the "hydro electric" company is not the same as the "solar energy collection" company. And as much as we Americans hate socialized anything, that would be one way of eliminating that particular problem.

DarkLink wrote:Biofuels work out to be a crazy-inefficient way of powering vehicles. It's simply not even remotely close to being viable. If we converted every single acre of farmable land in the entire world to producing biofuels, we wouldn't even produce enough to meet the USA's fuel demands, let alone the world's. And keep in mind that means basically eliminating all agricultural food production in favor of making fuel. Yeah, there's a reason it didn't take off. It's not like, say, solar power where the technology just needs to advance, or wind where it only intermittently produces power so it can only supplement other power sources rather than be a primary source. Biofuels are simply not feasible.

Right now.

As I said earlier, it's still a developing source, and the small amounts of fuels that are made seem to be able to perform at basically the same level as the "regular" stuff. Heck, they've already been adding biofuel into your regular gasoline for years.

 DarkLink wrote:
Biofuels work out to be a crazy-inefficient way of powering vehicles. It's simply not even remotely close to being viable. If we converted every single acre of farmable land in the entire world to producing biofuels, we wouldn't even produce enough to meet the USA's fuel demands, let alone the world's. And keep in mind that means basically eliminating all agricultural food production in favor of making fuel. Yeah, there's a reason it didn't take off. It's not like, say, solar power where the technology just needs to advance, or wind where it only intermittently produces power so it can only supplement other power sources rather than be a primary source. Biofuels are simply not feasible.

As recycling they work well, but obviously not in abundance to power the world. I know a guy that makes his own biofuel ( i guess) out of used cooking oil, his is the only car exhaust that can make you hungry, on a good day it smells like hot chips!

In regard to what Sebster said, I am far more worried about what we do to the ocean than I am about any other enviromental issue. Case in point the Orange Roughy fish - was a saviour to the Australian fishing industry a decade or 2 ago , and they fished the crap out of it. The orange roughy takes something like 80 years to reach maturity

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Some of the arguments against some of the renewable options are just bonkers... Remember a few years back, Mass. wanted to put a bunch of wind turbines 1 mile+ off shore of Cape Cod, and Ted Kennedy fought it tooth and nail until it died, because of "aesthetics". The thing with many renewables, particularly solar and wind, is that they are just so limited. There's no guarantee that the wind will blow, so companies who want turbine farms need to make sure they are in regularly windy areas (for instance, in Oregon they are all over the Columbia Gorge area, because it's ALWAYS windy there). In many places in the US, solar won't work as a primary source, because it isn't sunny enough. And in places where it is sunny enough, environmentalists have fought off many of the sites for large solar "farms". One option that's been presented, and regularly shot down, is using solar panels on residential houses, not as primary power, but to supplement what power is coming in. The issue I can see with that is that you're not really "cutting" what the big plant produces, you're just using less of it.

Our Prime Minister, the guy running the country, just came out and said he doesn’t like wind farms because he rode his bike past one years ago and thought it was ugly and made a lot of noise. And then started saying he was glad that in lowering our emissions targets we were going to get less wind farms. Incredible nonsense, really.

Probably the biggest detractor for alternative power, lies with the power companies themselves. In most parts, especially in the US, the "wind farm" company is not the same as the "hydro electric" company is not the same as the "solar energy collection" company. And as much as we Americans hate socialized anything, that would be one way of eliminating that particular problem.

Yeah, part of the issue is that while we’ve slowly and steadily improved the tech, we’ve only just begun to figure out how to incorporate the tech in to our infrastructure.

There are a few things the movie (based upon the clips I have seen) gets right.

Water shortages (already here) being the most prevalent.

Energy Shortages (possibly offset by Asias RAPID shift to renewables - nice thing about China, It makes decisions and implements them NOW, and it has already made the decision that it will be Fossil Fuel Free by 2030.

Europe is moving in the direction, but slightly slower, and the USA is even slower.

It is likely that Africa and South America will also begin to shift in that direction.

So the energy shortage is not going to be as severe as the movie claims.

But what it DOESN'T really address with enough gravitas is Technological Unemployment.

Think about what will happen in the USA when every taxi, bus, and train operator is put out of work by a nearly flawless AI self-driving vehicle.

That is coming by 2020.

MOST of those workers are NEVER going to be employed again.

Retraining the very few of them who can be re-trained will save maybe only 10%.

And... Even professionals such as Doctors and Lawyers are not immune from Tech Unemployment.

Look at IBM's Watson.

Do you know what its FIRST application is?

Paralegal and Diagnostician, which it does better than a human, millions of times faster.

It will not be very long before it can produce a fully argued legal case (including being able to field objections to points) in a full court.

Oh, and the Judge will have been replaced by another version of Watson.

ALL of our legal code will be reduced to a single network dealing with infractions. Which is scary in itself.

But even technological employment is not the scariest thing.

What I am hoping to be doing for a living for the rest of this century (when I get my PhD) represents the scariest thing:

Artificial Life, synthetic biology.

I, and others, are working on ways to cybernetically optimize human biology by simply getting rid of most of it (my own focus has been on the Enteric Nervous System - that is where you "Feel" your emotions, and what controls everything from your sternum to anus - and the thoracic and abdominal organs - primarily the digestive track, kidneys, and liver). And my plan revolves around replacing much of it with biological hydrocarbon plastics (plastic that is "cellular" being able to divide and repair itself like our cells, yet which exists in a MUCH more regular matrix than do our organic cells). Oh, and metals... We may be able to replace some of the molecules in the bilipid layer (cell envelopes/walls) with a metallic compound as well (much more difficult, but not impossible in theory).

This leads to a bifurcation of humanity. It won't play out like in Anime, or skurry Hollywood movies with Terminators and such. But it will lead to biological humanity essentially being slowly replaced. Some people find that to be frightening (and it is a little bit).


_________________________________________________________________________


OH!

And, WRT renewables.

ONE of the technologies being developed alongside Solar and Wind (and Ocean currents, which NEVER stop) are high capacity batteries, some of which require nothing more than a heavy rock to operate.

In the most basic (the Gravity Battery a portion of every day's wind or solar would go into pulling large weights up from very deep pits.

Then, when the wind stops blowing, or the sun stops shining, these weights can simply be released (still on the cables attached to them, used to haul them up), and as the weights drop, they will turn huge flywheels (kept running during the raising of the weights), which will in turn power a generator to create electricity. nearly 100% of the power put into a gravity battery is returned.

They are the single most efficient batteries in existence.

They are expensive to build, currently (digging large, deep holes is not cheap), but they remain cheaper than the batteries that Elon Musk is building for his Power Walls.

And, the area of land needed to power the entire globe with electricity from solar or wind is roughly the size of England.

I am sure that we can divvy that area up into regions that have at least one region that is sunny or windy when peak power is needed.

MB