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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: E who wrote (49860)8/7/1999 11:39:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 108807
 
I worry that we will run into disaster one way or the other. If we avert global warming ... if we manage to save some rain forest ...if we master the next superepidemic ... there's always the one we missed waiting to bite us on our collective toches. There are enough of us Homo saps now, and in close enough contact, that a real disaster takes on global scope.

At least I live in a time where libraries, personal transport and readily available semisynthetic narcotics are unremarkable facets of daily life.
<edit> Fwiw I have deliberately painted a worst-case scenario. I think it likely that we will find a way out - part technical, part social. The global village will make the old habit of "monkey see, monkey do" impossible. No more toxic "whoopsies" in the Barents Sea. No more water hose gold mines.
Ideally we will get a grip on population - and stem the tide of land development. We will figure out how to make clean energy (I am still a big fan of nuclear fission - it'll come back, just wait and see, it's easier and no dirtier than fusion) and largely close the resource loop. maybe "arcologies" (huge closed cities with small supply and waste streams) will become practical.

And soon it'll be practical to leave this rock cheap. It'll require a propulsion technology as far ahead of a Shuttle as that was ahead of the John Bull steam engine ... I give it a hundred years. Some of us right here might live to see it.



To: E who wrote (49860)8/8/1999 3:37:00 AM
From: Krowbar  Respond to of 108807
 
Elsa, despite the public perception, there are forward looking oil companies who are looking for sustainable solutions to our energy needs. Shell Oil is one.

Feb. 17 With Iceland?s blessing, DaimlerChrysler and Shell on Wednesday announced plans to try to turn the tiny country into the world's first "hydrogen economy" eventually replacing gasoline and diesel on all of its cars, buses and fishing fleet with nonpolluting hydrogen.
msnbc.com

Please read the whole article. Shell is getting very much into renewable energy, rather than fighting it . I applaud their efforts.

While Terrence claims to be forward looking, he is stuck in the 60's gas guzzling, carefree attitude, while others are working on clean solutions that will stimulate a whole new economy.

Del



To: E who wrote (49860)8/8/1999 1:19:00 PM
From: Father Terrence  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 108807
 
The real disaster is gutting the world's economy to prepare for something that is not going to occur. It would be the greatest example of media and government knee-jerk reaction to bad science.