# Peak Oil - Doom and gloom for Ireland



## RightBanker (19 Jun 2007)

Did anyone watch George Lee's excellent documentary last night on RTE - Future Shock: End of the Oil Age?  

Lee will probably get a bashing for being a doom and gloom merchant but he presented the facts on our dependency on cheap oil, which were profound and frightening.  

Only 18% of our journeys are on public transport - nearly 70 % are by private car - the reverse is the case in Europe. 

We use 200,000 barrels of oil a day. 

Our air travel has increased 400% since 1990. 

We import 60 billion Euro worth of goods. 

Lee explained "Peak Oil" is when production of oil reaches a maximum and thereafter supply reduces.  

"Peak Oil" is the onset of a new permanent condition with forecasters predicting production dropping by 3% per year, every year and some as much as 8%. No one was quite sure when the peak would arrive but it could be here already likely by 2010 and certainly by 2030. 

The impact on the world economy is staggering. In the oil crisis of 1973 OPEC reduced production by 5% in reaction to US support of Israel. Oil prices quadrupled, leading to inflation unemployment and high interest rates. It's frightening to think what a permanent decline will bring

Dick Cheney in 1999 "By some estimates, there will be an average of two-percent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead, along with, conservatively, a three-percent natural decline in production from existing reserves. That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional 50 million barrels a day".  

It's no wonder the US invaded Iraq.


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## HighFlier (19 Jun 2007)

Last weekend a group of senior ESB engineers wanted to reopen the debate on nuclear power. How many petrol queues and unfilled oil boilers will it take until people admit this is the only way forward.....No carbon emissions either so why arn't the green tree huggers more open to it and research into making it even safer than it already is.


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## z108 (19 Jun 2007)

I saw some article in  a recent newspaper forecasting that Ireland was sitting on bucketloads of oil and wed all be like the saudis or something. I cant remember where I saw it but I dont generally have tabloids around the house. I rememeber thinking it was a strange article at the time. Next is the conspiracy theory that the EU  and oil companies will benefit from it all.


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## MrKeane (19 Jun 2007)

Nuclear is not the answer beause the plutanium or uranium or whatever its called is running out.

Renewables and improved efficency (transport, house design etc.) are the long term solution (100 years into the future timescale)


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## MrKeane (19 Jun 2007)

Perhaps this is the answer to nuclear power in Ireland, tie this yoke onto one of the Aran Islands.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_floating_nuclear_power_station


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## gonk (19 Jun 2007)

What surprised me was that there was no mention of climate change, unless I missed it.

Even if there was an unlimited and easily accessible supply of oil, we can't keep burning it at the rate we have been, or we and the planet are screwed.

Maybe peak oil is a good thing, from that perspective, if it focuses us on energy efficiency and alternative energy sources.


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## Nermal (19 Jun 2007)

MrKeane said:


> Nuclear is not the answer beause the plutanium or uranium or whatever its called is running out.


 
Atomic fuel is unlimited if we use breeder reactors (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_breeder_reactor).

Of course, the only drawback is that these are the type that can produce fuel for nuclear weapons. But forward-thinking nations, that we are going to be buying power from, are building them now.



HighFlier said:


> No carbon emissions either so why arn't the green tree huggers more open to it and research into making it even safer than it already is.


 
The more I listen to the Green movement the more I gain the impression that they are simply opposed to human activity on principle, that they would genuinely find something morally objectionable about a world with cheap, readily-available energy. They don't actually want a solution to the problem of peak oil, they just want people to less energy on principle. It's hardly the spirit that built modern civilisation, which would dictate that the obvious solution to running out of one source of energy would be: _find another one._


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## Ravima (19 Jun 2007)

we will have huge negative equity in homes, massive unemployment, multi nationals pulling out, and now to cap it all, we'll be in the dark as well!!!!!!!

I can't wait for the third programme.


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## discstu (19 Jun 2007)

I was in Tesco last night buying apples, I got the type my kids like but noticed a type called Fuji I which came from
..........CHINA


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## GeneralZod (19 Jun 2007)

Is this programme going to be repeated any time soon?


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## Eeyore (19 Jun 2007)

GeneralZod said:


> Is this programme going to be repeated any time soon?



You can get it from [broken link removed]


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## KalEl (19 Jun 2007)

sign said:


> I cant remember where I saw it but I dont generally have tabloids around the house


 
Ah Sign, your dirty secret is out!

The answer is nuclear fusion...combining hydrogen and oxygen with water as the only by-product. Cars, houses, everything will be run by fuel cells. Clean energy...happy days!


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## badabing (19 Jun 2007)

KalEl said:


> Ah Sign, your dirty secret is out!
> 
> The answer is nuclear fusion...combining hydrogen and oxygen with water as the only by-product. Cars, houses, everything will be run by fuel cells. Clean energy...happy days!



The problem with fuel cells is they need hydrogen, which has a low volumetric energy density, and also the distribution infrastructure that would be required for it. The biggest problem with it is how to produce it cleanly, i.e. with green electricity.

BTW fusion will generate electricity not hydrogen


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## KalEl (19 Jun 2007)

badabing said:


> The problem with fuel cells is they need hydrogen, which has a low volumetric energy density, and also the distribution infrastructure that would be required for it. The biggest problem with it is how to produce it cleanly, i.e. with green electricity.
> 
> BTW fusion will generate electricity not hydrogen


 
When did I say fusion would create hydrogen?


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## Nermal (19 Jun 2007)

KalEl said:


> The answer is nuclear fusion...combining hydrogen and oxygen with water as the only by-product. Cars, houses, everything will be run by fuel cells. Clean energy...happy days!


 
Happy days when we actually figure out how to do it without using up more energy than we get from it.


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## Murt10 (19 Jun 2007)

RightBanker said:


> Only 18% of our journeys are on public transport - nearly 70 % are by private car - the reverse is the case in Europe.




I was in Rome earlier this year.

It costs E4.00 for a ticket that gives you unlimited travel for the day on the underground, bus and tram there. Public transport is swift and frequent.

Compare this to Dublin. E4.00 would only pay for a single trip into town and back for me. Also, I don't have 90+ minutes of my time to travel each way on the bus. Life is too short.

People should also be aware that the Government is taking in a huge portion of its income from taxes on petrol and diesel. It is also cleaning up big time on VRT. If the speed, cost and relaibility of public travel for the urban commuter in Ireland greatly increased then many people would opt for it instead of driving everywhere themselves. Less new cars bought, less petrol and diesed used and the Governments revenue would correspondingly fall. It's not in the Department of Finances interest to have us all switching to public transport.

I thought that maybe with the Green Party now in Government we might see some positive change but when I watched Minister Gormless on TV last night saying that he wanted to give penalty points for people who litter from their cars, my heart sank. I have no doubt that people do throw rubbish from cars and deserve punishment but as far as I'm aware penalty points were introduced with the promise that they would only be used to make diving safer and not for any other purpose such as to discourage anti social behaviour among mororist. 

Put a beggar on horseback and he’ll ride to hell. The Minister is in office about two days and he is already disconnected from the real world. I wonder what he'll be like after a couple of years at it. 

Maybe there's something in the water in the Custom House. His predecessor also showed an unbelievable arrogance and a tendency to live in a fantacy world. At least he got what he deserved in the end.




Murt


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## KalEl (19 Jun 2007)

Murt10 said:


> I thought that maybe with the Green Party now in Government we might see some positive change but when I watched Minister Gormless on TV last night saying that he wanted to give penalty points for people who litter from their cars, my heart sank. I have no doubt that people do throw rubbish from cars and deserve punishment but as far as I'm aware penalty points were introduced with the promise that they would only be used to make diving safer and not for any other purpose such as to discourage anti social behaviour among mororist.


 
Not the worst idea I've ever heard to be fair!

I agree with you about not feeling guilty about using your car. Hearing people rabbitting on about overuse of cars makes me sick...our public transport system is a complete joke. If it were better, more people would use it-simple as that.


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## z108 (20 Jun 2007)

KalEl said:


> Ah Sign, your dirty secret is out!




eh ? About sin ? 

http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=56757&page=2


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## serotoninsid (20 Jun 2007)

The independent documentary 'End of Suburbia' dealt with the subject a lot better. The rte programme definitely borrowed heavily from it.


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## jrewing (20 Jun 2007)

sign said:


> I saw some article in a recent newspaper forecasting that Ireland was sitting on bucketloads of oil and wed all be like the saudis or something. I cant remember where I saw it but I dont generally have tabloids around the house. I rememeber thinking it was a strange article at the time. Next is the conspiracy theory that the EU and oil companies will benefit from it all.


 
That was an article in the _Sindo_ a few weeks back - it was also in a couple of other papers. The article itself was completely sensationalist, as all the projected oil and gas has not actually been discovered, through drilling explorataion. Instead, these are assumptions based on the type of geology 200-300 km off the west coast.

I have no doubt that there will be finds in the next years, but given the high cost of deepwater technology, the harsh conditions in the Atlantic, and the Irish love affair with objecting to anything invented after 1900, this will not be a bonanza as described by that article...


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## RightBanker (20 Jun 2007)

What I don't understand is why the futures market isn't buying oil like crazy now if the experts are predicting $100 or even $200 a barrel within a matter of years. Anyone know the answer?


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## room305 (20 Jun 2007)

The December crude oil contract for physical delivery in 2015 (the furthest out contract currently traded, albeit very thinly) currently trades on the Nymex for $71 (see . So the simplest explanation is that the market doesn't believe the doom mongers.

That doesn't necessarily mean the market is right of course.

Some more discussion on the future direction of oil prices in this thread

http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=54046


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## Jock04 (20 Jun 2007)

Having worked in the offshore oil industry most of my life, I can tell you there's still plenty down there!
Platforms which should have closed down years ago are predicting another 10 years+.  And I've been on many a rig which has drilled successful wells that haven't been tapped yet - west of scotland had some great results, for one.
It's not in the oil companies interests to over-produce, it'd only bring the price down.
I don't think this generation has too much to worry about, but programmes like this one seldom let the real facts get in the way of a good story.


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## sonandheir (20 Jun 2007)

[FONT=&quot]I've been keenly interested in peak oil and it's consequences since learning about it over a year ago. One of the most startling facts I've come across is how our utilization of energy in our environment has sparked the exponential growth of the human population.

 [/FONT]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...tion_curve.svg/550px-Population_curve.svg.png

[FONT=&quot]This phenomenal growth in the human race exactly corresponds to the availability of cheap energy. By "cheap" I mean energy that requires very little energy input to extract a large amount of energy output. This exponential expansion unfortunately ends in a crash when the underlying resource that allowed it to happen begins to disappear. This little story is very relevant;

 [/FONT]



> St. Matthew Island
> During WW2 the US Coast
> Guard released 29 reindeer
> on this remote island as
> ...




 Just as this example above shows we are using up a resource that takes millennia to form.

When will this happen? I don't know. But even if it's 2 centuries away (and I seriously doubt that it is) we should still be trying to preserve oil for future generations. An organic chemist I know once quipped that oil is so precious that the last thing we should be doing is burning it.


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## Markjbloggs (20 Jun 2007)

I would have thought the growth in human population corresponded with cheap food, not cheap energy - before their current prosperity, China and India were very small consumers of oil?




sonandheir said:


> [FONT=&quot]I've been keenly interested in peak oil and it's consequences since learning about it over a year ago. One of the most startling facts I've come across is how our utilization of energy in our environment has sparked the exponential growth of the human population.
> 
> [/FONT]
> 
> ...


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## ubiquitous (20 Jun 2007)

Who was it that said that the Stone Age did not end due to a lack of stones...?


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## Markjbloggs (20 Jun 2007)

Bob Dylan...

"everybody must get stones"

or something like that.




ubiquitous said:


> Who was it that said that the Stone Age did not end due to a lack of stones...?


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## gonk (20 Jun 2007)

sonandheir said:


> [FONT=&quot]I've been keenly interested in peak oil and it's consequences since learning about it over a year ago. One of the most startling facts I've come across is how our utilization of energy in our environment has sparked the exponential growth of the human population.


[/FONT]



Markjbloggs said:


> I would have thought the growth in human population corresponded with cheap food, not cheap energy - before their current prosperity, China and India were very small consumers of oil?


 
Even now, India has an approximate annual per capita oil consumption of 0.8 barrels. The UK, by comparison uses 11.0 barrels per person annually. We in Ireland use 16.2! (Source: CIA World Factbook, [broken link removed])

So, India, with one of the largest populations in the world, consumes per capita less than one twentieth of the amount of oil we do. Yet Ireland's population is about 3 million below its pre-industrial level. If there is a correlation, it doesn't seem very strong to me . . .


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## rgfuller (21 Jun 2007)

Even when (and if) oil prices get too high due to shortage of production for world needs there is always lots of coal to fall back on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal to provide cheap (though not so clean) energy.


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## rock3r (21 Jun 2007)

Coal & nukes... yawn.

Let's stick with the sun, solar power has suddenly become cheap and efficient: 

_"Taking Nature's Cue For Cheaper Solar Power"_

_Solar cell technology developed by Massey University’s Nanomaterials Research Centre will enable New Zealanders to generate electricity from sunlight at a 10th of the cost of current silicon-based photo-electric solar cells. _

_Dr Wayne Campbell and researchers in the centre have developed a range of coloured dyes for use in dye-sensitised solar cells.  _

_The synthetic dyes are made from simple organic compounds closely related to those found in nature. The green dye Dr Campbell (pictured) is synthetic chlorophyll derived from the light-harvesting pigment plants use for photosynthesis. _

_Other dyes being tested in the cells are based on haemoglobin, the compound that give blood its colour._


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## RightBanker (26 Jun 2007)

Peak oil will arrive eventually and we will need to start preparing now for it. My fear is there are many things perhaps we in Ireland will not be prepared to do even though it maybe for the "greater good"

> Walking or cycling those short trips instead of using the car. 
> Significant investment of our taxes in a comprehensive rail infrastructure 
> Nuclear power
> Waste incineration

How we will ever overcome these challenges is a worry, when we can’t even route a road without an endless stream of objections.


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## rock3r (26 Jun 2007)

RightBanker said:


> Peak oil will arrive eventually and we will need to start preparing now for it. My fear is there are many things perhaps we in Ireland will not be prepared to do even though it maybe for the "greater good"
> 
> > Walking or cycling those short trips instead of using the car.
> > Significant investment of our taxes in a comprehensive rail infrastructure
> ...


 
Meh, Irish people will walk, cycle and use trains when cars return to being not economically viable. 

Nuke power might be necessary in countries without a coastline for generating tidal power and spare land for growing wood to fuel wood-burning plants (every tree you burn is balanced against 10 growing trees absorbing the carbon). 

Ireland's future should be Europe's primary renewable energy producer, exporting electricity to the UK and the continent.


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## badabing (26 Jun 2007)

The key thing not mentioned above is the rate of rise in demand, which rubbishes estimates about how long finite resources last. Take this extreme example.

11am.. theres 2 maggots in a jar.
Every minute they double their numbers.
at 12 o' clock the jar is full.

Q. How full is it at 11.59am
A. Half

So the rising demand brought about by an exploding consumer class in places like india and china multiplies the requirement for oil as illustrated in a previous post.

Heres another example that unfortunately is not extreme, but imminent; The population of the world is now 6 billion, it will be 9 billion within 40-50 years.

And another; demand for oil will increase in China by 8 million barrels per day by 2020 - thats increase, not total. Total capacity now is 24 million barrels per day, and does'nt seem to be increasing


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## joe sod (27 Jun 2007)

Alot of the problems we are now facing stem from the levels of human population and the increasing demands of that population on the earths resources. Nobody is really asking the question yet but it will be asked in the not too distant future, How do we acieve an orderly stabilisation in the worlds population and maybe a gradual reduction. Its all very well talking about renewable energy and recycling in order to reduce our footprint on the earth, but it is the number of footprints on the earth that is also a fundamental issue


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## z108 (27 Jun 2007)

joe sod said:


> Alot of the problems we are now facing stem from the levels of human population and the increasing demands of that population on the earths resources. Nobody is really asking the question yet but it will be asked in the not too distant future, How do we acieve an orderly stabilisation in the worlds population and maybe a gradual reduction. Its all very well talking about renewable energy and recycling in order to reduce our footprint on the earth, but it is the number of footprints on the earth that is also a fundamental issue



The whole capitalist system appears to be built on continuous growth.

A change from this would be very profound and I would think almost impossible to implement globally . what effect would it have on investors and the capital markets ?


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## MrKeane (27 Jun 2007)

I saw something on British TV (I think it was an ad) that if everybody used concentrated washing powder instead of the diluted stuff, 14000 trucks would be taken off British roads. Thats just one example of where we can accept fundamental change if it is forced on us.

As oil gets expensive and scarce we will adapt.


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## MOB (27 Jun 2007)

"How do we acieve an orderly stabilisation in the worlds population and maybe a gradual reduction."

Is population not already starting to decline in many of the 'developed' nations?  Was the greying of France and Italy predicted by anybody 30 years ago?  It may well be the case that the world population will continue to expand, but the truth is that we are relying on a large helping of research plus an inevitable element of guesswork.


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## shanegl (27 Jun 2007)

joe sod said:


> Alot of the problems we are now facing stem from the levels of human population and the increasing demands of that population on the earths resources. Nobody is really asking the question yet but it will be asked in the not too distant future, How do we acieve an orderly stabilisation in the worlds population and maybe a gradual reduction. Its all very well talking about renewable energy and recycling in order to reduce our footprint on the earth, but it is the number of footprints on the earth that is also a fundamental issue


 
I'm no expert, but isn't this similar to the Malthusian view on population, which isn't very popular these days?


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## room305 (27 Jun 2007)

joe sod said:


> Alot of the problems we are now facing stem from the levels of human population and the increasing demands of that population on the earths resources. Nobody is really asking the question yet but it will be asked in the not too distant future, How do we acieve an orderly stabilisation in the worlds population and maybe a gradual reduction. Its all very well talking about renewable energy and recycling in order to reduce our footprint on the earth, but it is the number of footprints on the earth that is also a fundamental issue



I take the opposite view and am convinced a sparsely populated world will emit greater pollution. As Sheldon Richman of the Cato Institute puts it:



> The increases in population and wealth have not been merely coincidental. They are causes and effects of each other. Today, with few exceptions, the most densely populated countries are the richest. Any mystery in that is dispelled by the realization that people are the source of ideas. The addition of people geometrically increases the potential for combining ideas into newer, better ideas ... Those who wish to stifle population growth would condemn hundreds of millions of people in the developing world to the abject deprivation that characterized the West before the Industrial Revolution.



Not a view you'll hear the Green Party ever express but pointed out elsewhere, they seem to be the anti-human development party as much as anything else.


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## ubiquitous (27 Jun 2007)

MrKeane said:


> I saw something on British TV (I think it was an ad) that if everybody used concentrated washing powder instead of the diluted stuff, 14000 trucks would be taken off British roads.



This doesn't appear to make sense. A population of roughly 55 million people in Britain should equate more or less to 20 million households.  If the switch from diluted to concentrated powder reduces the powder volume by half, the above theory would imply that 28,000 trucks on British roads are solely used to transport washing powder. Or in other words, for every 717 households, one truck is used solely, day-in-day-out, all year round, to transport washing powder. If you assume that on average each household goes through a box of washing powder per month, this would equate to each truck only carrying 8,604 boxes of washing powder per year, or 34 per working day. Even if you double these figures on the basis of one box per home per fortnight, you end up with each truck carrying only 78 boxes per day. It doesn't really add up.

ps I wonder did the ad/feature refer to "14,000 truck journeys" rather than 14,000 trucks? This would be more credible, but sadly would only get rid of 56 trucks (based on 1 journey per truck per day for 250 working days per year). Just shows the power of advertising and PR...


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## badabing (27 Jun 2007)

MOB said:


> "How do we acieve an orderly stabilisation in the worlds population and maybe a gradual reduction."
> 
> Is population not already starting to decline in many of the 'developed' nations?  Was the greying of France and Italy predicted by anybody 30 years ago?  It may well be the case that the world population will continue to expand, but the truth is that we are relying on a large helping of research plus an inevitable element of guesswork.



Following the curves, its not that difficult to see that 9 billion will be the peak in 40 - 50 years time, followed by a stabilisation / reduction. The greying of western countries is largely irrelevent as they make up such a small proportion of the total demographic.

Population most dense in richest countires - certainly not true. The largest / most densely populated cities are almost all in second / third world countries. Only 4 of the 20 largest are 1st world;
http://www.mongabay.com/cities_pop_01.htm

Regarding capitalism correlating to population growth, this is true to a certain extent, but the greying  / falling polulations of western capitalist countries contradicts this. Certainly the type of capitalism we have will evolve as the population stabilizes.

Assuming energy supply meet this requirement, the real problem for population down the line will be the next ice age (somewhere within the next 1000 years) which will dramatically reduce the worlds population due to reduced precipitation and hence arable land.


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## room305 (27 Jun 2007)

ubiquitous said:


> ps I wonder did the ad/feature refer to "14,000 truck journeys" rather than 14,000 trucks? This would be more credible, but sadly would only get rid of 56 trucks (based on 1 journey per truck per day for 250 working days per year). Just shows the power of advertising and PR...



Good spot! I'd say the ad probably did say "journey" which as you point out, is somewhat less impressive than it sounds.


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## room305 (27 Jun 2007)

badabing said:


> Population most dense in richest countires - certainly not true. The largest / most densely populated cities are almost all in second / third world countries. Only 4 of the 20 largest are 1st world;
> http://www.mongabay.com/cities_pop_01.htm



The assertion was for countries rather than cities. Though the cities you mention are densely populated and poor, you will find that the living standards of inhabitants are generally better than rural dwellers in less densely populated areas of these same countries.


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## Markjbloggs (27 Jun 2007)

Are you sure about this list - some mistakes, eg Medillin listed twice??



badabing said:


> Following the curves, its not that difficult to see that 9 billion will be the peak in 40 - 50 years time, followed by a stabilisation / reduction. The greying of western countries is largely irrelevent as they make up such a small proportion of the total demographic.
> 
> Population most dense in richest countires - certainly not true. The largest / most densely populated cities are almost all in second / third world countries. Only 4 of the 20 largest are 1st world;
> http://www.mongabay.com/cities_pop_01.htm
> ...


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## rock3r (27 Jun 2007)

badabing said:


> Regarding capitalism correlating to population growth, this is true to a certain extent, but the greying / falling polulations of western capitalist countries contradicts this. Certainly the type of capitalism we have will evolve as the population stabilizes.
> 
> Assuming energy supply meet this requirement, the real problem for population down the line will be the next ice age (somewhere within the next 1000 years) which will dramatically reduce the worlds population due to reduced precipitation and hence arable land.


 
Assuming that a drop in arable land will necessarily lead to population shrinkage is not reliable: arable land is capable of feeding 300-500 billion if used efficiently: no meat, and concentrate on high-nutrient food so no land devoted to nutrient void things like lettuce.

It seems clear that capitalism leads directly to dramatically lower birth rates. Under the profit system, individuals are strongly rewarded if they do not reproduce.

Thus we can say that, taking all points into view, the evidence is that capitalism works efficiently towards the extinction of the human race, both in terms of reproduction and in the case of destroying the environments humans need to survive. Naturally, this is not to defend communism as it existed prior to 1990. Feudalism seemed to, at least, not penalise people for reproducing.  

Anyhoo, it appears that either another economic system will evolve or humanity is a dodo.


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## badabing (27 Jun 2007)

room305 said:


> The assertion was for countries rather than cities. Though the cities you mention are densely populated and poor, you will find that the living standards of inhabitants are generally better than rural dwellers in less densely populated areas of these same countries.



Here's countries by population density then
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_density

I counted 7 first world countries in the top 50 highest density polulations, excluding small islands and city states, and 2 in the top 30.

Interestingly, I noted Ireland has the lowest population density of any 1st world country that does'nt have vast amounts of wilderness i.e. US, Sweeden, Finland, Nz, Norway, Iceland and australia


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## ubiquitous (27 Jun 2007)

rock3r said:


> Feudalism seemed to, at least, not penalise people for reproducing.


Really? Malthus would disagree...


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## badabing (27 Jun 2007)

rock3r said:


> Assuming that a drop in arable land will necessarily lead to population shrinkage is not reliable: arable land is capable of feeding 300-500 billion if used efficiently: no meat, and concentrate on high-nutrient food so no land devoted to nutrient void things like lettuce.
> 
> It seems clear that capitalism leads directly to dramatically lower birth rates. Under the profit system, individuals are strongly rewarded if they do not reproduce.
> 
> ...



Ya but were talking a serious drop..i.e the breadbaskets of the Ukraine and mid west US gone...

Interesting point about feudalism though...there are signs that we're evolving into a system of a small amount of large global corporations with possibly some elements of feudalism and communism...

Anyone interested in this type of thing may be interted in a book called deep futures by Doug Cocks;
http://www.amazon.com/Deep-Futures-Our-Prospects-Survival/dp/0773526722


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## rock3r (27 Jun 2007)

The tropics will be the new breadbaskets in an ice age scenario.

Despite what hollywood says, we'll have years in which to make the necessary adjustments.


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## badabing (27 Jun 2007)

rock3r said:


> The tropics will be the new breadbaskets in an ice age scenario.
> 
> Despite what hollywood says, we'll have years in which to make the necessary adjustments.



Soil is not very fertile in the tropics among other problems..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_agriculture#Major_constraints

Our only saving grace will be if the ice age comes before oil runs out, which will allow increased mechanisation and ability to adapt then. Global wamring will push that period out in the mean time though


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## z108 (27 Jun 2007)

I'm even more confused now . Are we having Global warming or an Ice Age ?
And if an ice age is coming then why worry about carbon trading  to reduce global warming etc ?


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## ubiquitous (27 Jun 2007)

sign said:


> I'm even more confused now . Are we having Global warming or an Ice Age ?


Its really a case of "whatever you're having yourself". Two decades ago all the green (and Green) types were worried about Global Cooling. Now the wheel has turned. How long until it reaches full circle?



sign said:


> And if an ice age is coming then why worry about carbon trading  to reduce global warming etc ?



? me too


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## badabing (27 Jun 2007)

ubiquitous said:


> Its really a case of "whatever you're having yourself". Two decades ago all the green (and Green) types were worried about Global Cooling. Now the wheel has turned. How long until it reaches full circle?
> 
> 
> 
> ? me too



Ok Here's a quick summary
In the mid 20th century a phenomenon known as global cooling was thought to be taking place as recorded temperatures seemed to be dropping. This was widely attributed to dust particles from heavy industry / coal burning etc much more prevelant then. Tighter legislation has  reduced airborne dust particles and largely neutralised this effect, hence the trend stopped in the 70's. Example of this; Higher temperatures recorded in the US immediately after 9/11 after banning planes from the air for a few days

Global warming...no need to talk about that..

Next ice age..Technically we are still in a large ice age during which period, we enjoy brief breaks (interglacial periods). Its been 10,000 years since the last ice age, the longest interglacial on record, and consequently are due to enter into it again within the next 1000 years. During this period the average temperature will drop by 10 degrees, cancel global warming and go further the other way...

Ironically we may at that time try and use green house gasses to trap heat and prevent cooling..until then though excessive green house gas concentrations are causing increasing temperatures and unpredictable weather patterns. i.e flash floods in the british isles and 47 degree heat simulatneously in Italy occuring right now


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## joe sod (28 Jun 2007)

rock3r said:


> Assuming that a drop in arable land will necessarily lead to population shrinkage is not reliable: arable land is capable of feeding 300-500 billion if used efficiently: no meat, and concentrate on high-nutrient food so no land devoted to nutrient void things like lettuce.
> 
> It seems clear that capitalism leads directly to dramatically lower birth rates. Under the profit system, individuals are strongly rewarded if they do not reproduce.
> 
> ...


 
I don't know where you get your information from but 300/500 billion is a gross exageration. The twentieth century was all about agricultural efficiency through mechanisation, factory farming, fertilisers and pesticides. This is where the huge increases in production came from. All of the worlds arable land is now in production unless you want to keep knocking down rain forests in order to bring more of it into production. So I cannot see where you are going to get more efficiency. The only area is if people eat less meat and more grain goes directly to human consumption. However that probably gives some scope for further limited population increases to 9 or 10 billion but not 300 billion. The fundamental issue is that we have reached the limits of what the nature can provide, for all our technical advances we are still restricted to the earth and what it can provide. Therefore the economic system we now have based on unlimited resources has to change. Many of the fundamental tenets of capitalism and economics were devised in the seventeenth and eighteenth centurys when there were unlimited resources. Of course they were developed from a european perspective of colonisation where if resources ran out in one colony you just found another colony and took theirs.


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## room305 (28 Jun 2007)

joe sod said:


> The fundamental issue is that we have reached the limits of what the nature can provide, for all our technical advances we are still restricted to the earth and what it can provide. Therefore the economic system we now have based on unlimited resources has to change.



Any ideas on what we can replace it with? Communism, feudalism, barbarism ... ?


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## z108 (28 Jun 2007)

room305 said:


> Any ideas on what we can replace it with? Communism, feudalism, barbarism ... ?



If we can just find  space aliens who are less powerful than us to colonise and exploit we'll be back on track  .....Well it seems about as likely to me (unless space propulsion technology improves by 10000%) as communism embedding itself back into western culture but who knows.
Right now we have an illusion of democracy in the west anyway through which the ruthlessness of capitalism will always prevail as we dont have truly representative democracies in reality. By this I mean we only get one say and its about who gets elected but once they become elected then we have little or no say about what they do once they are there until the time comes to vote them in or out again. e.g  Blairs war in Iraq being unpopular with most of his electorate but he presses ahead with it anyway. Electorates let their governments get away with a lot of things for the sake of stability.

Regarding food, it might be possible to farm the sea and also live on or in it..... theres a lot of _inner space_ there waiting to be exploited.... and if genetically modified food took over it would lead to further productivity gains. It could also be possible to have farms orbiting the earth soaking up the suns energy but this seems like real science fiction right now. But so did cloning seem like science fiction back in the 90's.

I hope it will be a long time before we need to go the _Soylent Green_ route





badabing said:


> Ok Here's a quick summary
> In the mid 20th century a phenomenon known as global cooling was thought to be taking place as recorded temperatures seemed to be dropping. This was widely attributed to dust particles from heavy industry / coal burning etc much more prevelant then. Tighter legislation has  reduced airborne dust particles and largely neutralised this effect, hence the trend stopped in the 70's. ....
> 
> Ironically we may at that time try and use green house gasses to trap heat and prevent cooling....




Wow I dont care about Global Warming any more. Wasnt the Tsunami in Asia caused by an undersea _earthquake_  and not by Global Warming ?


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## ubiquitous (28 Jun 2007)

joe sod said:


> All of the worlds arable land is now in production unless you want to keep knocking down rain forests in order to bring more of it into production.



Absolute rubbish. Large areas of agricultural land within the EU alone (including Ireland) are being used at zero- or near-zero production capacity because the EU subsidy regimes are based on the current necessity to avoid over-production of milk, beef, lamb etc. On a different level altogether, it hardly credible to argue that land in places like Zimbabwe is utilised at full production capacity.



joe sod said:


> The fundamental issue is that we have reached the limits of what the nature can provide, for all our technical advances we are still restricted to the earth and what it can provide. Therefore the economic system we now have based on unlimited resources has to change. Many of the fundamental tenets of capitalism and economics were devised in the seventeenth and eighteenth centurys when there were unlimited resources. Of course they were developed from a european perspective of colonisation where if resources ran out in one colony you just found another colony and took theirs.



People have been saying at least for the past 100+ years that the age of technological advance is at an end. Who was they guy who said around 1900 that, based on the then-current trends, and projecting for expected population growth, New York would be buried under six feet of horse manure by the year 2000 (or whenever)? Who was it who said sometime during the 20th century that there might sometime be a global market demand for five computers?


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## ubiquitous (28 Jun 2007)

badabing said:


> until then though excessive green house gas concentrations are causing increasing temperatures and unpredictable weather patterns. i.e flash floods in the british isles and 47 degree heat simulatneously in Italy occuring right now



I for one don't buy into that particular theory. Its just as likely that increasing temperatures (ie from the sun)  are causing higher green house gas concentrations. 

Unpredictable weather patterns are nothing new.  Flooding killed 307 people in England in one day on January 31 1953. The "night of the Big Wind" in Ireland was in 1839. Similarly, 40+ temperatures are nothing new in Italy.


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## z108 (28 Jun 2007)

badabing said:


> .until then though excessive green house gas concentrations are causing increasing temperatures and unpredictable weather patterns. i.e flash floods in the british isles and 47 degree heat simulatneously in Italy occuring right now



But wasnt the weather always unpredictable ?

I get the feeling sometimes that this kind of religious _end of days_ attitude is about. Two thousand years ago the Jewish people thought the end of the world was always going to be next week but 2000 years later we are still here.
If someone has a religious mentality they may attribute  everything  imperfect to mans' allegedly sinful behaviour e.g we produce too much carbon, we enjoy ourselves too much and dont wear our hair shirts for long enough.
Superstitious cultures would sacrifice children to their gods if a lamb was born dead. Ok we have advanced  a lot since then technologically but that doesnt mean we are to blame for natures unpredictability. Nature has always been cruel and rational in the application of its laws. Whats so different between the present days unpredictability of weather at current temperatures and the historical trend for unpredictability at a different yet similarly fluctuating temperature going back aeons ?


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## Remix (28 Jun 2007)

sign said:


> If someone has a religious mentality they may attribute everything imperfect to mans' allegedly sinful behaviour e.g we produce too much carbon, we enjoy ourselves too much and dont wear our hair shirts for long enough.


 
This is a good point but the interesting thing is that much of the preaching on global warming is coming from the scientific community. 

My guess is that some scientists hear the call to preach when they realise that funding for their research depends on the amount of alarm that can be raised. The pulpits in this case are often endowed chairs of prestigous universities and the prophets of science are often elegant and very convincing. The heretics in this community are those scientists who differ with the majority scientific opinion.

I'm not suggesting that what they say is wrong (I don't know) but I often feel that when scientists speculate on difficult problems- be it global warming or other areas - we should remind ourselves that their opinions do not represent proof.


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## z108 (28 Jun 2007)

Remix said:


> This is a good point but the interesting thing is that much of the preaching on global warming is coming from the scientific community.



Yeah but according to someone else the world will cool in an ice age despite anything we do and in that case the carbon in our atmosphere will come in useful so why bother to change anything ? It's a waste of time.


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## rock3r (28 Jun 2007)

sign said:


> But wasnt the weather always unpredictable ?
> 
> I get the feeling sometimes that this kind of religious _end of days_ attitude is about. Two thousand years ago the Jewish people thought the end of the world was always going to be next week but 2000 years later we are still here.
> If someone has a religious mentality they may attribute everything imperfect to mans' allegedly sinful behaviour e.g we produce too much carbon, we enjoy ourselves too much and dont wear our hair shirts for long enough.
> Superstitious cultures would sacrifice children to their gods if a lamb was born dead. Ok we have advanced a lot since then technologically but that doesnt mean we are to blame for natures unpredictability. Nature has always been cruel and rational in the application of its laws. Whats so different between the present days unpredictability of weather at current temperatures and the historical trend for unpredictability at a different yet similarly fluctuating temperature going back aeons ?


 
Seeing as we're tossing science into the drain, why not just assume it's leprechauns causing the global warming? At least we might get a pot o' gold and some lucky charms out of it.



> I'm not suggesting that what they say is wrong (I don't know) but I often feel that when scientists speculate on difficult problems- be it global warming or other areas - we should remind ourselves that their opinions do not represent proof.


 
When your baby gets sick, are you so skeptical of the powers of medical science? After all, it's only scientific _opinions_ that say that penicillin is superior to prayer.

If the hospital tells you that, due to cutbacks, they'll be using prayer and crystals rather than scientific medicine to heal your relative, do you cheerfully accept that?


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## z108 (28 Jun 2007)

rock3r said:


> ...When your baby gets sick, are you so skeptical of the powers of medical science? After all, it's only scientific _opinions_ that say that penicillin is superior to prayer.
> ...If the hospital tells you that, due to cutbacks, they'll be using prayer and crystals rather than scientific medicine to heal your relative, do you cheerfully accept that?



*Scientific proof *supports the argument for penicillin. Not scientific *opinion*.  How many scientists/doctors do you know who dont believe in the usefulness of antibiotics ?

As for the hospitals indulging in chanting and prayers I read a story a few years ago about someone in hospital being blessed with holy water and it killed them due to bacteria in the water coupled with a weakened immune system 




rock3r said:


> Seeing as we're tossing science into the drain, why not just assume it's leprechauns causing the global warming? At least we might get a pot o' gold and some lucky charms out of it.



How is science being tossed into the drain ?  If the earth is going to cool anyway then why invest so much resources into halting global warming ? e.g. a BBC documentary I saw recently where scientists were proposing all sorts of expensive actions such as seeding the oceans with Iron to feed plankton which take up carbon, etc, seeding the skies with sulphur, building thousands of rockets and ships etc. Such expensive actions would take significant percentages off world economic growth and could well turn out to be follies. In fact I feel kind of conned that during this TV programme there was no mention of global cooling or an ice age and instead it concentrated on scaring us into the notion that we would all  burn up.

As fossil fuels run out in the next 50 years  wont Global warming due to these be less of a problem in any case ?


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## shanegl (28 Jun 2007)

sign said:


> Yeah but according to someone else the world will cool in an ice age despite anything we do and in that case the carbon in our atmosphere will come in useful so why bother to change anything ? It's a waste of time.


 
Because global warming could affect our lives, not 1000 years in the future when we're all gone


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## ubiquitous (28 Jun 2007)

shanegl said:


> Because global warming could affect our lives, not 1000 years in the future when we're all gone



Of course global warming "could affect our lives". On the other hand global cooling "could affect our lives". However that doesn't mean that we should waste money or limit human enterprise in futile attempts to combat either "problem". I would be of the opinion that a global economic downturn triggered by an over-zealous reaction to a climate change scare would affect our lives much more certainly, immediately and sharply than any potential weather patterns in the next 100-1000 years that in all probability are outside the scope of human control.


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## shanegl (28 Jun 2007)

I disagree. Being out of work is not as bad as being under a few feet of water.


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## z108 (28 Jun 2007)

shanegl said:


> I disagree. Being out of work is not as bad as being under a few feet of water.



But coastal erosion has always been with us for thousands of years. It would be cheaper to improve coastal defences than to implement many of the ideas I've seen.


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## shnaek (28 Jun 2007)

Have a look at this TED talk:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/62

It's a talk by Bjorn Lomborg about prioritising global issues. The press and politicians are as usual being carried away by a 'loss-leader' with Global Warming. For the sake of our planet and our economic well being we need to prioritise where we invest our money and our scientific energies in order to best serve the human race. Sound-bytes and hysteria should not take precedence.


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## rock3r (28 Jun 2007)

sign said:


> *Scientific proof *supports the argument for penicillin. Not scientific *opinion*. How many scientists/doctors do you know who dont believe in the usefulness of antibiotics ?


 
There is no such entity as scientific proof as distinct from opinion. All science is subject to review on the basis of evidence.

The evidence-based scientific opinion, which is every bit as valid as the medical science you depend upon and trust is that there will be no global cooling in the next few centuries, but that global warming will continue to happen to a heavy degree over thew next century.

If you're not going to accept that that's the case, you're really in the realm of pookas and witches. It's science or magic and there's no mix 'n' match.


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## Sunny (28 Jun 2007)

rock3r said:


> There is no such entity as scientific proof as distinct from opinion. All science is subject to review on the basis of evidence.


 
So the earth could still be flat???


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## Remix (28 Jun 2007)

Consider this (notorious) admission from Steven Schneider of Stanford, a leading proponent of the global warming theory. 

He admitted:



> To capture the public imagination, we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we may have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.


 
What's he's essentially saying is that there are circumstances where scientists may put "the cause" above the truth.


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## z108 (28 Jun 2007)

rock3r said:


> There is no such entity as scientific proof as distinct from opinion.



That reads  like you re saying 'There is no such entity as scientific proof' 

There is a huge difference between opinion and fact. A scientific opinion is a  guess . A guess can be either right or wrong no matter how many facts are quoted.
One example of a guess is : theres a 70% chance you wont develop a hereditary disease or theres a 70% chance the operation is successful but its still speculation as to which bracket of the 30% or 70% group you fall into.

This is what you do with facts , you draw conclusions from them.


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## ubiquitous (28 Jun 2007)

rock3r said:


> There is no such entity as scientific proof as distinct from opinion. All science is subject to review on the basis of evidence.
> 
> The evidence-based scientific opinion, which is every bit as valid as the medical science you depend upon and trust is that there will be no global cooling in the next few centuries, but that global warming will continue to happen to a heavy degree over thew next century.
> 
> If you're not going to accept that that's the case, you're really in the realm of pookas and witches. It's science or magic and there's no mix 'n' match.



Unlike the principles of medical science, there is no unanimity on the certainty or otherwise of global warming, and certainly none whatsoever on the question of how mankind's actions can prevent it.


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## Eeyore (28 Jun 2007)

ubiquitous said:


> Unlike the principles of medical science, there is no unanimity on the certainty or otherwise of global warming, and certainly none whatsoever on the question of how mankind's actions can prevent it.



Thats complete nonsense. There is consensus in the scientific community on the fact that the world is warming due to human causes and what needs to be done to address it. If you don't agree with this please see the latest reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). How much more consensus do you need!


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## z108 (28 Jun 2007)

Its only half nonsense if you read it pedantically. People seem to agree the earth is warming but they also agree the earth has gone through warm and cold periods before in its history so this is nothing new unless you start to wonder how mans growth over the planet has affected things. How I feel conned is  about why none of those  documentaries  or reports have mentioned the effects of  Global cooling and the advantages a warmer planet will have when fighting a freeze which leads me to wonder are they scaremongering? Maybe Global warming is a good defense against the inevitable freeze which will occur.

And nobody can tell me , wasnt the tsunami in asia caused by a  under sea earthquake and not by global warming ?


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## ubiquitous (28 Jun 2007)

Eeyore said:


> Thats complete nonsense. There is consensus in the scientific community on the fact that the world is warming due to human causes and what needs to be done to address it. If you don't agree with this please see the latest reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). How much more consensus do you need!



That's not exactly the case. There has been plenty of dissent among scientists towards the IPCC report, including allegations by many members of the panel that the reservations and doubts of many of its members were airbrushed out of the final report in order to enable it to make its dramatic conclusions. Its interesting that these allegations tally with Steven Schneider's admission as quoted above.  

Since the publication of the IPCC report, its supporters have used it  as a means to avoid debate on the subject. Al Gore appeared in front of a US Congress hearing this March to tell us (to some scepticism) that the time for debate on global warming was over. In fact he said the exact same thing in 1992. The following item from the Canadian National Post is very interesting:  

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?id=c47c1209-233b-412c-b6d1-5c755457a8af


> They call this a consensus?
> Lawrence Solomon, Financial Post
> Published: Saturday, June 02, 2007
> 
> ...


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## Eeyore (28 Jun 2007)

Here's a useful guide to throw some light on the climate change issue based on evidence rather than speculation.

[broken link removed]


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## ubiquitous (28 Jun 2007)

Eeyore said:


> http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11462-climate-change-a-guide-for-the-perplexed.html



Its interesting that you quote a feature the New Scientist magazine in support of your allegation that there is no scientific scepticism regarding climate change. The following article, by a former editor of the New Scientist, indicates the opposite.


> From The Sunday Times
> February 11, 2007
> An experiment that hints we are wrong on climate change
> Nigel Calder, former editor of New Scientist, says the orthodoxy must be challenged
> ...


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1363818.ece


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## room305 (28 Jun 2007)

Eeyore said:


> Thats complete nonsense. There is consensus in the scientific community on the fact that the world is warming due to human causes and what needs to be done to address it. If you don't agree with this please see the latest reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). How much more consensus do you need!



Whenever governments the world over agree on something I immediately become suspicious. From what I can see, governments and bureaucrats are cynically exploiting *green* initiatives as a means to raise more taxes, pander to well established lobby groups, restrict free-trade and encourage anti-competitive tariffs. The US government support of bio-ethanol manufacture from corn is a prime example of this nonsense.

However, that said I do think this is a man-made problem. I just have grave doubts that Al Gore peddling the modern form of indulgences is the solution.


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## polaris (29 Jun 2007)

sign said:


> And nobody can tell me , wasnt the tsunami in asia caused by a under sea earthquake and not by global warming ?


 
Yes, the Asian tsunami was caused by an earthquake and had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with global warming.


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## badabing (29 Jun 2007)

Even if there was no talk about global warming..green house gasses etc, you would have to admit the averave joe soap would be still getting pretty bemused by all the strange weather patterns we are experiencing over the last few years...

To the previous poster, yes the tsunami had nothing to do with global warming


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## Omega (29 Jun 2007)

all this doom and gloom about oil is depressing - what about Peak Bagel?
http://audio.todayfm.com/audio/Gift_Doom.mp3


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## z108 (29 Jun 2007)

polaris said:


> Yes, the Asian tsunami was caused by an earthquake and had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with global warming.





badabing said:


> To the previous poster, yes the tsunami had nothing to do with global warming



Thanks for the response 
It was half a rhetorical question but the point of asking was because there is a perception from myself anyway that all unwanted or catastrophic weather everywhere gets blamed on global warming but the worst of it such as the tsunami actually had nothing to do with Global warming at all !





(ps, I dont want anyone to infer I dont take caring for our planet seriously in case anyone commits the sin of jumping to premature conclusions)


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## Remix (29 Jun 2007)

On the lighter side (it is Friday afterall) one thing you can say for the Global Warming debate is it makes for great headlines. Here's a tiny sample that have appeared in the past year:

_Scientist Implicates Worms in Global Warming!_

_Earth Mother getting angry: American Indians Speak on Global Warming_

_Father of climatology dismisses global warming as 'hooey': 'There is a lot of money to be made in this'_

_Cat Invasion Due to Global Warming_

_France Invaded by Swarms of Giant Hornets - Global Warming Blamed _

_Leonardo DiCaprio has warned that humans face extinction because of global warming_

_Brothel owner blames lack of clients on Global Warming_

_Hotel places Gore's global warming book in night stand instead of Bible_

_President of Czech Republic Questions Gore's Sanity _

_Stephen Hawking Warns: Earth 'might end up like Venus, at 250 degrees centigrade; raining sulfuric acid'_

_Stephen Hawking Warns: Humans must go to space to survive_

_NUREMBERG-STYLE TRIALS PROPOSED FOR GLOBAL WARMING SKEPTICS _

_Study Predicts Global Warming Will Cause Children's Fevers To Soar_

_Report: Global Warming Worries Keeps Children Awake At Night _


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## joe sod (30 Jun 2007)

ubiquitous said:


> Absolute rubbish. Large areas of agricultural land within the EU alone (including Ireland) are being used at zero- or near-zero production capacity because the EU subsidy regimes are based on the current necessity to avoid over-production of milk, beef, lamb etc. On a different level altogether, it hardly credible to argue that land in places like Zimbabwe is utilised at full production capacity.
> 
> 
> 
> People have been saying at least for the past 100+ years that the age of technological advance is at an end. Who was they guy who said around 1900 that, based on the then-current trends, and projecting for expected population growth, New York would be buried under six feet of horse manure by the year 2000 (or whenever)? Who was it who said sometime during the 20th century that there might sometime be a global market demand for five computers?


 

Setaside in europe is a tiny proportion of the worlds arable land also zimbabwe in global terms is insignificant in terms of global production (although very significant locally). The fact that set aside existed shows how productive the rest of the land became in europe through mechanisation and fertilisers. The era of set aside is ending soon anyway, it is largely a relic of european CAP policies in the eighties. In the eighties china and india were insignificant consumers compared to today. It is another case as I see so often in postings of focussing on the small picture but failing to appreciate the overall picture.


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## z108 (30 Jun 2007)

Omega said:


> all this doom and gloom about oil is depressing - what about Peak Bagel?
> http://audio.todayfm.com/audio/Gift_Doom.mp3



Dont want to hijack the thread any more from issues but thats hilarious and the soundbites of GL talking about 'a small open economy' are hilarious 




joe sod said:


> Setaside in europe is a tiny proportion of the worlds arable land also zimbabwe in global terms is insignificant in terms of global production (although very significant locally). The fact that set aside existed shows how productive the rest of the land became in europe through mechanisation and fertilisers. The era of set aside is ending soon anyway, it is largely a relic of european CAP policies in the eighties. In the eighties china and india were insignificant consumers compared to today. It is another case as I see so often in postings of focussing on the small picture but failing to appreciate the overall picture.




So is agricultural land the next big thing with   _'ASSURED GUARANTEED RETURNS'_


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## ubiquitous (1 Jul 2007)

joe sod said:


> Setaside in europe is a tiny proportion of the worlds arable land also zimbabwe in global terms is insignificant in terms of global production (although very significant locally). The fact that set aside existed shows how productive the rest of the land became in europe through mechanisation and fertilisers. The era of set aside is ending soon anyway, it is largely a relic of european CAP policies in the eighties.


Setaside is but a very minor factor in the current underproduction of Irish agriculture, which results partly from EU subsidy incentives and partly from other factors. The REPS scheme and the various afforestation schemes affect production capacity in land areas far more significant than those covered by Setaside. 

Another major contributor is social change, including the decline in full-time farming and the trends towards hobby farming and "holiday home" farming. These trends have been replicated elsewhere within the EU and worldwide as income gaps have widened between agricultural work and other work. 

If agri land was as scarce as you make out, these income gaps would have closed rather than widened in recent decades. Scarcity raises prices and incomes. Oversupply does the opposite. I think its pretty obvious that agriculture is still in oversupply over large areas of the world.


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## barryo (1 Jul 2007)

Nuclear power is the answer for Ireland. Not Uranium based - we should be looking at Thorium based Nuclear power. There is lots of this stuff and the only reason its not in widespread use today is due to the fact you cant make weapons from it and was thus considered a bad idea in the 50's. Its waste lasts 500 years instead of 10's of thousands also. 

People who have a blanket mentality against Nuclear really should learn more about it..


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## joe sod (2 Jul 2007)

barryo said:


> Nuclear power is the answer for Ireland. Not Uranium based - we should be looking at Thorium based Nuclear power. There is lots of this stuff and the only reason its not in widespread use today is due to the fact you cant make weapons from it and was thus considered a bad idea in the 50's. Its waste lasts 500 years instead of 10's of thousands also.
> 
> People who have a blanket mentality against Nuclear really should learn more about it..


 
I agree fully with this, Ive also heard about the potential of Thorium. I believe the world will finally switch to nuclear. But a switch to nuclear would have profound changes on the global economic system on transportation etc. It would probably necessitate more state control of energy supply and transportation as it would probably be too big an undertaking for the private sector. I think it would be a case of going back to the future as freight would probably have to be transported by rail powered by electricity. It would also mean that resources and government spending would also have to be prioritised for this. So I think centralisation and state control will have a resurgance.


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## badabing (2 Jul 2007)

Looks like the half life is very long..unless the half life is less when converted into U233. Also its not commercialised, that will be solved I guess, but it does seem to have potential in weapons too..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium


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## rock3r (5 Jul 2007)

Assuming that the human race builds several thousand nuclear power plants, what will that do to the availability of uranium? Do we have enough to power that many plants?

What are the costs of mining uranium and processing it so that it is usable as nuclear fuel?

Right now we have several hundred nuclear plants, and the price of Uranium has nearly doubled.

Also, there's a report out that shows that Europe can supply ALL of its energy needs from renewables.

What's needed? New, high-capacity interconnectors between Africa, Iceland and the continent. Geothermal from Iceland, solar from Africa and wind will help build a totally-reliable power supply. No blackouts, no brown-outs, no intermittency, no need to emit carbon.


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## z108 (5 Jul 2007)

rock3r said:


> What's needed? New, high-capacity interconnectors between Africa, Iceland and the continent. Geothermal from Iceland, solar from Africa and wind will help build a totally-reliable power supply. No blackouts, no brown-outs, no intermittency, no need to emit carbon.






This depends on political leadership and will in the G8 and elsewhere. The UN seems pretty useless  and underfunded.
If money influences politicial wills , newspapers and opinions, is there more money to be made out of non renewables than renewables ?


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## rock3r (5 Jul 2007)

Whether or not there's money to be made is up to the choices the world makes.

There's definitely trillions to be lost from flooded coastal cities and nuclear accidents


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