A Letter from the Future (2101)

Muse Letter ^ | March 2001 | Richard Heinberg

[handk]

I heard about this article listening to GCN Live and thought it would be interesting to post. The radio guest also has a web site; www.silverbearcafe.com (with over 4,000 articles).

[Billthedrill]

Repackaged Paul Ehrlich.

[CasearianDaoist]

It is more likely that we will have 100,000 people living in settlements on the Moon, Mars and the moons of Jupiter all kept warm and toasty by nice and clean fussion reactors.

[Modernman]

You forgot the Barf Alert.

[SedVictaCatoni]

the price signal from resource shortages might come only weeks or months before some hypothetical replacement would be needed

Just to debunk this particular part of the "peak oil" myth: subterranean petroleum is not contained in a giant puddle underground. Some deposits are easier to get at than others. Those near the surface in Ohio and western Pennsylvania were extremely easy to get at, so they went first. Then went those near the surface in Texas. Today, Saudi Arabia's are really easy to get at, so they're being drilled. Offshore oil is a little harder; Alaska's is somewhat harder. Next come the oil shales of Alberta.

The point is that we won't suddenly discover some day that oil ran out that afternoon, and instantly the price goes from $35/barrel to $1000/barrel. Assuming that the rate of oil consumption continues to increase, which is still somewhat of a guess, oil will just become gradually harder to extract. And the price will ramp up slowly as a result.

Consequently, there is no way that we would have only "weeks or months" before discovering that the oil-based economy was doomed. Oil would reach $40/barrel, then reserves which are hard to get at but worth it if oil's going to be that expensive would be drilled... then $50 barrel... etc. And at every price level, the market gets to decide whether oil is the most cost-effective source of energy, or if something else would make more sense.

[Old Sarge]

Imagine. All that bandwidth, just to say, "It's All George W. Bush's Fault!"

[Woahhs]

Speaking of time travel, is there any way I can go back and recover the time I wasted reading this sophomoric pap?

[Woahhs]

Well YOU'LL never get a spot on the Art Bell show!

[BadAndy]

This post is like an Al Gore wet dream.

[BlueLancer]

"In others, there were random attacks on older people."

Go ahead and try, you little thugs ... most of us older folks are armed and we're not going to go alone; we'll take a few of you sanctimonious hypocrites along with us (you know, so as to reduce the excess population).

[Publius]

Your arms were confiscated during the Hillary Clinton presidency.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Repackaged Paul Ehrlich."

aka "The Human "Steaming Pile""

[Zippo44]

Just more dystopian crap. Ignore the doomsayers for they are surely full of it.

One example: The immense cost of nuclear power is due to outrageously unrealistic costs assigned to waste disposal. The truth of the matter is that radioactive waste disposal could be handled in a sane and inexpensive manner but is not due to the hysterical reaction of people who are under the sway of the Green Meanies.

If this kind of tripe strikes you as deep and full of meaning, I suggest you avoid reading science fiction as there is an entire genre of SF that makes this weenie's paranoid rant seem like the gentle musings of a Zen master.

GOD! I am so sick of these a$$holes.

[Fiddlstix]

Bump
To read later

[Lucky Dog]

I tend to be much more sympathetic to the Left because I think that the accumulation of wealth that was occurring was just obscene. I suspect that a hell of a lot of suffering could have been averted if all of that wealth had been spread around early on, when the money was worth something.

Socialist propaganda with an eco-twist. I agree with an earlier poster, "you forgot the BARF alert."

[MIchaelTArchangel]

Who's the real author? It sounds a lot like Ted Kaczinsky's Unibomber Manifesto or a tome from a member of an enviro-wacko group.

I find it interesting that the author seems to believe some -- after energy source pretty much run out -- will be able to have the resources, the time, and the genius to develop a communications device that no only sends e-mail backwards in time but somehow also manages to insert it (randomly?) into various closed networks to which the device is not connected but that no one will have the resources, the time, and the genius to tap geothermal energy sources or the tides or any other number of sources of energy.

[The Great RJ]

Yes, if we had only elected Al Gore as president in 2000, all would be bliss and I would be living in a socialist utopia where the government wiped every tear and most of the fannies. Free markets and capitalism not to mention voting Republican and driving those gas guzzling SUV's were the cause of every social ill.

Where's the barf alert???

[dighton]

Show some respect!

Heinberg is a "core faculty member" at this institution.

;-)

[Dead Dog]

BUY GOLD AND VOTE FOR MOBIE!

[Codeflier]

First: Where is the Barf alert?
Second: Like the comment before, I wish I could go back in time and not waste my time reading this.
Third: This person has no understanding of economics.
Fourth: This person has no understanding of science.
Fifth: This person is definitely going to vote for Nader or Kerry.