Is there a Sustainable Future?

[john kane]

Do you really think given the developing countries lack of regard for environment, in addition to the developed countries persistent lack of any serious reductions with regards to CO2 emissions etc due to economic, and hence political motives, that there is actually a sustainable future?

I've been thinking about this a lot recently. I'm interested in your views.

[Duke]

Good topic. Consider, too, that newer weapons make all of the "wars to solve social problems" extremely dangerous for the planet. Warring tribes with sticks or even guns weren't a big deal to humanity as a whole, after it was sufficiently spread out. Nukes can be.

The distant future will necessitate travel to other stars, and making planets inhabitable. Who knows if we'll survive long enough to see that, though. Science needs to make a lot of progress for that to be at all feasible.

[wacki]

Satellite imagery shows that people who depend on fossil fuels are far less damaging to *local* ecosystems than those that don't. This is because they don't strip the land of trees for firewood.

Fossil fuels are in the *long term* far more damaging though. Even the people that deny global warming simply can not deny ocean acidification.

Yes I think it's sustainable, we just need to stop neglecting the physical/energy sciences.

Here is a good run down of sustainable energy:
http://tinyurl.com/y7mg2x

[TimWillTell]

After a couple of decades, we will run out of oil.

Then global economy is going to collapse; billions of people will starve to death.

Pollution will decrease tremendously and the planet will heal itself.

[vhawk01]

[ QUOTE ]
After a couple of decades, we will run out of oil.

Then global economy is going to collapse; billions of people will starve to death.

Pollution will decrease tremendously and the planet will heal itself.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wanna bet?

[She]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
After a couple of decades, we will run out of oil.

Then global economy is going to collapse; billions of people will starve to death.

Pollution will decrease tremendously and the planet will heal itself.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wanna bet?

[/ QUOTE ]
C'mon... Make that 2:1.
I would say that necessity is the mother of invention, but perhaps I should wait until after you take the bet? /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Mickey Brausch]

[ QUOTE ]
Satellite imagery shows that people who depend on fossil fuels are far less damaging to local ecosystems than those that do.

[/ QUOTE ]Well said.

/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[FortunaMaximus]

Right. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

They still use catapults to throw satellites into space, yes?

[Zeno]

The vile and hideous pestilence called the human species will soon eradicate itself from the surface of the planet. Either that or Jesus comes back, riding a white horse, leading armies, His eyes like flames and with a sharp sword erupting from His mouth to smite the nations [see Revelation chapter 19, verses 11-15].

And then-----

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth had past away; and there was no more sea. –Revelation Chp. 21, v. 1.

Surprise - a happy ending after all. Of course, I’ll be Hell so I can’t enjoy this new lease on life for the planet and the starry heavens but the righteous will reap their reward. Let’s hope they are better stewards this time.

-Zeno, Infidel

[smk67]

I absolutely think oil is gone in 30 years and supply will diminish leading that point. So the global warming people might want to calm down, because we will no longer be producing CO2 as we do today. Fuel cells are promising in the long run, not sure how long until they are on the market. Essentially, the plan is to use H2 reaction with O2 to make water, H2 coming from CH4 which we have ~100-200 year supply. Another concern is how to make materials when oil is gone. How do you make plastics, chemicals, etc. which currently are derived using oil as a feedstock. Easy solution might be to use coal (200year+ supply), not sure if that is feasible though.

[FortunaMaximus]

There's nearly a century of known and estimated oil reserves left. That black gold ain't going nowheres, no.

And when it's drained, there'll be a sustainable energy source to take its place.

Energy isn't really a concern. We'll find something reasonable and figure out supply/demand to make it dirt cheap. It's only worth as much as the majority of people are willing to pay for it, or it won't be profitable.

In this century, it's not whether or not there will be use of CBN weapons, but how widespread the uses will be, especially nukes. The market saturation's almost to the point you can buy it if you're motivated enough and stupid enough.

Oh, it'll set progress back half a millennia if the conflicts are large enough. Kashmir, Middle East, terrorists striking major Western cities.

We'll establish the first sustainable colonies in space. The Moon will need to rely on Earthside support for quite awhile, then the trend should reverse itself as manfacturing takes a strong hold. It's easier to toss Nike shoes down a gravity well than it is to throw a pair out of it.

There's a difference between there being a sustainable future and our capability of fulfilling the potential for one. That's at best, a 50/50 proposition.

Amazing. There's enough fissionable material to throw two thousand people on a decent acceleration trajectory to Alpha C. But, no, territorial primates that we are, we devised a way to kill millions of people with it instead.

Go home, slime creatures from Aldebaraan. Nothing to see here. It'll be a hell of a show though.

[Girchuck]

Barring development of cheap scalable energy source quite soon, the exponential growth in the global economy will not be sustained for long. We may have at most two decades of increasing production rates of petroleum, after which, oil production rate will no longer increase globally. Oil is currently the cheapest most versatile energy source we have.
If we are forced to go to more expensive energy sources, like hydrogen or ethanol, or coal, more wealth of the society will be spent to provide for the energy needs, and less will be available to increase the living standards.
This will probably cause the investors to reconsider investing in expensive projects with long pay offs which will make the problem worse.

[John Feeney]

This thread should be sustained a bit longer.

Though the political problems you mentioned block any guarantees, I think there's clear room for hope. The issue of ecological collapse has been getting increasing media attention as our environmental problems become too severe to ignore. The more media attention, the better. The current reduction in the Bush administration's power is a good step as well.

An issue getting more attention, after a lull of a few decades, but needing much more, is our continuing exponential population growth. It is the fundamental cause of many of our environmental problems, and adds tremendous fuel to the fires of others.

Here's a brief starter kit of links on relevant topics:

http://realclimate.org/

http://www.logicalscience.com/

http://www.mnforsustain.org/bartlett_a_malthus_marginalized.htm

http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/lectures/461

http://www.smalltownproject.org/2006/04/06/will-we-avert-ecological-collapse/

http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-193149858x-0