RightBanker
Registered User
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- 15
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?
St. Matthew Island
During WW2 the US Coast
Guard released 29 reindeer
on this remote island as
back-up food source for
their men.
Lichen mats 4 inches deep
which had taken centuries to
grow covered the island.
Since there were no
predators, the food supply
allowed the reindeer
population to reach 6000 by
1963.Within three years of the
reindeer having reached peak
population, their numbers
were slashed to 42 miserable,
emaciated specimens.
Lichen is slow growing, so the
carrying capacity was much
less than 6000 reindeer.
[FONT="]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.
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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...tion_curve.svg/550px-Population_curve.svg.png
[FONT="]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;
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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.
Who was it that said that the Stone Age did not end due to a lack of stones...?
[/FONT][FONT="]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.
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?
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.
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
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
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 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.
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.