CO2 being mined to produce more oil by displacing oil to the surface is amusing. Using refinery and other industrial sources of CO2 to add to the mined CO2 to displace more oil is starting to look like an economic cycle.
There are some very large questions to which we don't yet have answers.
The biggest = what will be the human population in 2100 and 2200?
My argument is that Peak People, like Peak Oil will be in 2037 as hordes of the aged die in droves. Already, birth rates in Japan, China, Europe, North American are way down and some populations are already in decline. India's huge birth rate has declined and continues to decline and will no doubt soon be below replacement levels.
It's quite likely that some Malthusian population reductions will deal with overpopulation is some places with the four horses of the apocalypse doing their horrendous work. Rwanda, Cambodia and other countries have seen some horrific population reductions by violence. There has been a vicious respiratory infection in NZ this winter which was apparently H1N1 aka swine flu - if it had been H5N1 which has 70% mortality NZ's population would now be about 2 million instead of 4 million. Sometime in the next 30 years, the swarming comingled horde of 6 billion people is likely to see a pandemic catastrophe. The breeding and propagation pool is at world record levels. Even with world record infection prevention we are unlikely to get away with it unscathed.
Another very big question - what is the optimum CO2 level?
It's silly to say "Whatever it was 200 years ago before the steam engine was invented". Nature is not in balance and does not have our best interests at heart. CO2 levels have fallen for eons to homeopathic borderline survival levels. There was no particular merit to CO2 levels 200 years ago or 100 years ago or 1,000 or 10,000 years ago.
2,000 ppm was the level long ago for eons. The carboniferous era reduced CO2 dramatically with coal and limestone filling the earth in vast carbon graveyards. 280 ppm was the low. Something like 450 ppm to 1000 ppm seems unlikely to be much of a problem and is likely to be a good thing for plant food.
It took 100 years to get from 280 ppm to 380 ppm and getting to 450 ppm or 500 ppm is likely to be very hard work even with billions of us at it. Especially as the population goes into decline. I'd like to be still producing CO2 in 2050 but it is unlikely. The next generation will have to take over. They won't.
They will use cyberspace, methanol fuel cells, insulation, highly efficient little city cars run on electricity. They'll be fully automated. People will not be spending a lot of money digging up oil and coal.
It's a simply matter to shift taxes from cyberspace to carbon combustion. Carbon travels by the ship, train or truck and lends itself to taxation compared with cyberspace which is a will 'o the wisp and does not.
Tax is essentially a 3D territorial activity related to borders and chimpoid lifestyles with alpha males, dominance hierarchies, conquest and found wealth. Cyberspace is the Second Coming of universal neighbourly love and individual to individual relationships without Roman Emperors sticking their grubby paws in.
People have imagined the Second Coming would be some long haired bloke wearing a toga and sandals. The point of the First Coming was the idea of individuals running their own lives on an individual to individual basis without Big Brother aka the Roman Emperor and kleptocrats getting in the way. The state does not take kindly to being usurped so of course they arranged a crucifixion as they do today if anyone gets too uppity. They have a problem with cyberspace as they did with people whispering in the Byzantine labyrinthine bazaars = it's hard to control.
Net Neutrality and the FCC arguments for them being in charge are about nothing less than Big Brother getting control of everyone as they do in China and in other repressive regimes. Net Neutrality is dressed up as "freedom" with the FCC and governments ensuring freedom. If anyone falls for that, they are wet behind the ears and as green as chlorophyll having come down in the last shower.
Governments do not enforce freedom. The default setting for governments is "Everything that is not illegal is compulsory". If there is any freedom that leaks through the cracks, it's because total control of everything is not possible. The only way to have total control is to have total destruction and that eliminates the controllers too, so that won't work.
Mqurice |
