Wow. A lot to unpack there. First of all thank you for reading and taking the time to comment and format your reply so nicely.Unfortunately, the rest of the response presents a comic-book version of reality that is so prominently displayed in such publications as the Economist or Fortune.
First of all “Did I bother to look up…”, Yeah Michael I did. I did bother to look it up and many things related to it. Did you bother to click on the link provided and review the study cited?Putting that aside for a second, even if we did have 47 years of oil, Homo Sapiens has been around for 300,000 + years and earliest hominids go back 4.2 million years. I think you are being a bit too cavalier considering a child born today will not only face the loss of industrial civilization’s main energy source but that same loss will be accompanied by a destroyed planet.
About that 47 years….. The global indistrial civilization Micheal, is not like a Chevy Suburban. You can’t drive it hell bent over potholes and hills till the gas tank shows 2 gallons left and you take the next exit. According to the IEA oil consumption is set to rise along with economic growth well into the rosy future so while the tank is getting lower and lower you want to go faster and faster and any Chevy owner will tell you that that way you burn your fuel faster and will never make it to the next exit.
That clear enough?
As far as “Normally we discover 12 billion barrels a year..” statement I want to thank you. It is rare to find a specimen of Normalcy Bias that starts with the word “Normally…”Wikipedias description is as good any: “Normalcy bias, or normality bias, is a cognitive bias which leads people to disbelieve or minimize threat warnings. Consequently, individuals underestimate the likelihood of a disaster, when it might affect them, and its potential adverse effects.”
You made me chuckle! Thank you.
First it is factually incorrect. 12 billion happened once in 10 years. And I think you are missing the point of what what resource depletion means. It means it gets harder and harder to find and takes more and more energy to extract. And not just oil. Any mineral faces the same math. The rarer the metal, such as ones in electronics or rechargeable batteries and in our energy capture machines (solar and wind), the more acute the problem is. You’re right though, we probably won’t get to 10 billion the way we are going.
As far as making “carbon fuel” is concerned, I’m puzzled by what you mean but in either case carbon fuels are the problem, not the solution.
So many things wrong with “there is no shortage of water or food…” that words that would not fail me would be far too many for this reply. I’ll just leave it at : you’re wrong. Turn on a different TV channel.Once I got past the “animal manure will grow all our food” part, the literacy pretzel was interesting, suffice it to say education is economic activity so is “jobs”. Every economic activity requires energy, there you go wanting to stomp on that accelerator again.
As far as governments around the world are concerned, that is a topic for political essays and I’m trying to abstain.Again, thank you for reading.
