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Mar. 18th, 2006 03:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dikayasobakaОчень сильная статья, хоть и неоднозначная:
The End Of Civilization (англ.)
By Dave Eriqat
03/17/06 "Countercurrents"
Общий тезис ее в том, что нас ждут "Новые Средние Века", когда недостаток ресурсов и общая статификация общества приведет к по сути дела полному подчинению неимущих низших классов новому классу феодалов.
The End Of Civilization (англ.)
By Dave Eriqat
03/17/06 "Countercurrents"
Общий тезис ее в том, что нас ждут "Новые Средние Века", когда недостаток ресурсов и общая статификация общества приведет к по сути дела полному подчинению неимущих низших классов новому классу феодалов.
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Date: 2006-03-18 01:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-18 04:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-18 05:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-03-18 05:07 pm (UTC)То, что предполагает Эрикат, есть лишь один из сценариев - и отнюдь, с моей точки зрения, не невозможный. И в плане деятельности нашей администрации - его версия очень даже неплохо "ложится на факты".
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Date: 2006-03-18 05:10 pm (UTC)там в комментах
Date: 2006-03-19 05:54 am (UTC)This piece disturbs me. This is not because its conclusions frighten me. To the contrary I recognize them as nonsense. What disturbs me about this piece is that most of the posters to ICH are not as ignorant as the author of this piece although Tom Feeley tends to err on the side of inclusion rather than exclusion in the articles he posts to ICH (which is a good thing). This piece bothers me because it shows that even Americans who take the time to seek out good alternative sources of information and make the effort to contribute to them seem to be getting stupider. This is not to say that they are unintelligent, but rather to say that they lack the ability to see the big picture ("common" sense possessed by previous generations). We are too focused on details in this country (information overload?) and it is making us act in stupid ways. Even ultra-right-wing conservatives can cite deatils to argue their points (ie. see Weekly Standard website). Let me throw in a few more details to address the points addressed in this piece from a wider and more balanced perspective which will demonstrate that this piece comes to ridiculous conclusions.
1. Although it appears that we are indeed within a few years of the phenomenon known as "peak oil," this does not mean the end of civilization as we know it. There is enough coal in the world to keep it going for nearly another hundred years, even assuming the current rate of exponential growth in energy usage continues. The US has 25% of the world's known coal reserves, so there is no desperate need for us to steal oil from other nations.
2. Coal needn't be burned directly to produce energy (very dirty). It can be converted into petroleum or natural gas for considerably less than we are currently paying for these commodities. The last price I got from Sasol in South Africa was $40/barrel to make synthetic petroleum about six years ago. The problem here is that building coal to gas or petroleum plants is costly and would result in major financial losses if oil and/or natural gas prices plummet in the near future. The issue is economic and managerial and not resource shortage.
3. Nuclear fusion is within a few decades of being a commercial large-scale energy-providing reality. The European ITER is scheduled to go online in France shortly after 2010. This reactor is expected to point the way to commercial electricity generation within a couple of decades.
4. The Malthusian idea that the earth has exceeded the practical carrying capacity for the human species has been bandied about seriously well before the population reached a billion people. One hundred years ago no one would have believed that the earth would be capable of supporting a population of 6 billion humans. The truth of the matter is that no one has any idea of what the true carrying capacity of the earth for humans is because this number is extremely technology-dependant, and no one has any clue of where our technology is headed beyond a time horizon of several decades.
5. The article above is actually not as alarmist or nearly as well-documented factually as many I have read thirty-five years ago which claimed that pollution was going to destroy civilization by 1985. I have read hundreds of well-documented alarmist treatises over the last forty years and dozens of utopian predictions of how the future would turn out due to emerging technology, and cannot remember a single incidence where any of these treatises with a prediction horizon of longer than 25 years turned out to be even remotely accurate. The treatises I read now tend to be much more poorly researched than those I read 30 - 40 years ago, and probably are worthless for predicting anything outside of 5 years in the future.
In summary...... Peak Oil? Yes, probably soon. Short-term crisis? Yes, probably. End of civilization? No way, unless we do something very very stupid due to irrational panic (this is what worries me)."
Re: там в комментах
Date: 2006-03-19 10:18 pm (UTC)