BC: DOOMER DESPAIR
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I think the truth is that nearly every sentient human on this planet is capable of predicting the future, relative to their individual environments and access to information.
What we cannot do is predict things with arbitrary precision in arbitrary time frames.
In the Northern Hemisphere, we predict winter is colder than the rest of the year and so we have ways to provide warmth. Predicting exactly how much colder is January 24th, 2008 than July 1, 2008 is where we have a problem. Nevertheless, we'll still have fireplaces, radiators, and heavy coats available during the winter, regardless of the specific temperature.
Similarly, we humans know that we will get hungry, thirsty, sleepy, dirty, and we have processes for dealing with those eventual certainties. Exactly what we will eat, how long we will sleep, how much we will drink, the temperature of the shower, where we will put our dirty wastes, is of secondary importance to knowing that in the future there will be something we're eating and drinking, somewhere we'll be sleeping and disposing of our wastes (preferably in different somewheres) if we wish to remain living.
At a minimum, humans need water, food, shelter, sanitation. Without reliable sources of these, there is no foundation for any society. Presently, 6.5 billion people get the overwhelming majority of their water, food, shelter, and sanitation through the expenditure of fossil fuels.
Virtually our entire infrastructure to
* pump, desalinate, and purify water
* grow, package, preserve, and transport food
* mine and process raw materials
* build climate-controlled structures
* clean ourselves and our environments to fight disease
is dependent on fossil fuels inputs.
Without fossil fuels, something else must provide those services within the infrastructure. Those services are a combination of the fuel input and the infrastructure that receives it. Uranium can't be used at a natural gas plant, nor will it power your ICE-based automobile.
If there isn't something else available, then water shortages will worsen, food production will decline, shelters won't be maintained, people will get dirtier, and disease will spread.
Among the "solutions" we have to deal with our global resource crisis range, we have:
* business-as-usual
* more nuclear
* flywheels
* hydrogen
* ethanol
* solar
* algae
* CTL
BUT ... our ability to develop these solutions depends on a system that expects fossil fuel inputs, and it depends on having enough time.
BUT ... in order to develop solutions at all, which requires research, materials, and teams of safe and secure scientists, there must be enough ongoing societal stability. That stability requires that most of the people in society are getting enough water, food, shelter, and aren't physically ill.
BUT ... we are still ignoring that energy out is always less than energy in, and we have built a society dependent on the stored results of hundreds of millions of years of ancient sunlight and geological pressure. this was a one-time shot, and we've pissed through the first half like beer at a fraternity party. the best-case, realistic scenarios of our solutions will only postpone the inevitable and make the aftermath that much worse.
Nevertheless we have decided to:
* increase our resource draw to develop new solutions
* continue our existing and increasing resource draw for a growing population
While at the same time:
* resources are becoming depleted
* our ability to extract them is declining
* expending more and more primary energy in the extraction of primary energy (declining EROEI)
* the vastly overwhelming majority of the populace is clueless about the crisis we face
So what does this say about the future and where we are headed?
I think where we are headed is very clear:
DECLINE .. The only question is timing, and what additional obstacles we'll face along the way (rolling blackouts, fascism, social chaos, 404s dominating the Net). |
