Re: THE PARTY'S OVER: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies

"Economic Democracy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> "Richard Heinberg has written an outstanding book, The Party's Over
> ..The world and the U.S. populations are projected to double in 50 and
> 70 years, respectively, and global oil supplies are projected to be
> mostly depleted in 50 years! [Worse, oil production will peak sometime
> between 2006 and 2015] I agree with Heinberg that
> society is headed for serious trouble in the near future."  --David
> Pimentel, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Entomology, Systematics AND
> Ecology, Cornell University
>
> "The Party's Over begins with a commanding review of world history,
> where past and current developments including war, empire, and
> population growth are interpreted as functions of cheap or
> increasingly scarce and expensive energy. The discussion of
> substitutes for fast-depleting fossil fuels, and the formidable
> impediments to making the transition that would allow industrial
> civilization to continue, are important to every investor and
> citizen."- Virginia Deane Abernethy, Ph.D., author of Population Politics
>
> http://www.museletter.com/partys-over.html
>Snip....

Pure nonsense. Fossil fuels are no where near running out and the biggest
one of them all hasn't even begun to be tapped yet. It's true that oil
production is on its downslope but given all of the problems oil creates
including war, it's probably a good thing that we divest ourselves of its
use.  The faster it runs out the better. There are many alternatives to oil,
wind solar and bio-mass even nuclear to name a few. These will never be
fully developed until oil is not as readily available as it is today. In
addition there is coal with the US harboring about one quarter of the worlds
supply. Coal alone could fuel our society for a couple of hundred years.
But, the big enchelada is not coal, solar, bio-mass, nuclear, or wind, its
methane hydrates found abundantly in the ocean muds. There is more energy in
these muds on the continental margins than all other fossil fuels combined.
Development of this source will fuel mankind at the preset rate of energy
use for hundreds of years. Clearly there are many alternatives to oil that
will be developed as oil becomes more scarce. The idea that we are running
out of scarce energy is preposterous because if only focuses on oil and not
the many alternatives waiting in the wings. The development of the
alternatives is a matter of simple economics. They would be developed much
faster is the true cost of oil including war were acknowledged and factored
in. Interestingly none of the alternatives require any involvement in the
middle east or Arab world. That alone is worth the price of admission.
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