Snooppy

So you think this economic crisis has come and gone, then?

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Argyuile

I think that its not going to destroy even if it gets worse. The country has been through worse and survived we will get through this as well.

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I'm willing to entertain your idiotic notion of how reality works if it'll get you to the point faster - Black Mage

We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality.

Snooppy

I don't see any country getting "destroyed". What I do see is a pretty serious paradigm shift in foreign affairs and a proclivity for countries to begin to isolate themselves more and more in order to deal with unstable fuel prices, economic upheaval and a general need to self-repair.

Is this all going to happen next week? No. But I would have to say that the next few years will see some pretty subtle, yet important changes in our world. The next 10 years will see a very different global environment.

Peak Oil is a concern. It is not an infinite resource and we do not have sufficient quantities of viable alternatives to counter the impact it will have.

Arable land is also a concern.

Dwindling fresh water (clean) supplies are a concern.

You have to admit that the resources we have are finite based on the current levels of consumption. Even those that we call "renewable" resources because there are so many of us and the demand is so high that they have no time to stabilize and regenerate.

It's doom and gloom only in the sense that if you want to ignore facts, then this stuff will trigger your filters.

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Argyuile

It will be a hickup for the US

Oil is only used mainly because its cheap as it because more expensive other working technology will be used. The only reason they aren't really used currently is because there cost in relation to the current cost of oil is high.

Not for the United States

Perhaps in the short term but de-salianization technology already works so its just a cost issue. ATM its cheaper to not de-saliente salt water but that will not be the case forever.

Things always balance out in the end. Even if it takes a big war between china and india.

I don't believe in god but I do believe in human ingenuity. I also believe that necessity is the mother of invention. We don't have solutions right now because we don't need them.

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I'm willing to entertain your idiotic notion of how reality works if it'll get you to the point faster - Black Mage

We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality.

Meta

There's quite a few studies on this subject out there. If you want to reinforce this point with data, there's tonnes available. Food is going to be a major issue for the developed world in our lifetimes by the look of it.

As for the 3rd world.. well.. it looks grim.

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Snooppy

And when we do need them it will be far too late to seamlessly roll them out into the pre-existing framework.

Your opstimism is admirable. Your connection to reality (eg. it's only a matter of costs) is questionable.

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Snooppy

I'll use this quote because it best captures another one of the slips in logic that pervades what you are saying.

You are looking at the US and the individual crises in isolation.

Yes the US does have a lot of arable land still available to be exploited, but the country does not currently produce enough food to sustain itself and with most of the rest of that arable land set aside for corn to produce ethanol to run its 450 million vehicles, you are kind of fucked.

The order of magnitude (and more) that de-salinization facilities would have to increase by and the amount that they will need to supply cannot be overlooked. You couple that with the fact that many of the arid areas of the US (or many other countries) are found far inland from the coast, you would suddenly need to produce a rather vast and complex network of pipelines to carry the water; or introduce a huge fleet of ethanol driven tanker trucks to ship it around the country.

So it all just costs more money... but wait... the US economy is floundering. The US dollar is snowballing with risk. You balk at the costs of Universal Health Care, when they costs of implementing even one of the measures you cite would eclipse that.

So, I think you need to re-evaluate the optimism and temper it with some realism. The only thing that self-repairs on this planet is the Earth, itself - and it does so on a timeframe that we cannot rely on to help us.

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Argyuile

Are you suggesting that these problems will be the same for the US as they are for say, India?

We havn't even touched the available amount of arable land. Not to mention if those crops suddenly are money makers current fields will be switched to money making crops. They already have cars that go 40 miles on 0 Gas and their really isn't a ton of incentive to be better (gas is still cheap). Wait till gas is expensive.


Would it be any harder than building cross country railroads, or regular roads that criss cross the country, or things like the Alaskan Pipeline? The only thing we lack is the will to do such a thing.

I don't know how much it would cost but the 33 billion dollars a year we spend on foreign aid would be where I would start. Since farming will be profitable again we can pull another 16 billion from farm subsidies. Suddenly I have 50 billion dollars a year to spend on de-salienation!

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Daedalus

If only we could use people as a fuel source.....would be like killing a flock of birds with one stone!

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Pouncer

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