Rapunzel,
Thank you for such a reasoned and well thought out analysis. I don't know what the ultimate consequences of our actions will be.
Anyone who thinks of climate as a constant need only think about the origin of "peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot, nine days old" to consider just how very short a time span lies between the last time our current ice-age woke up a bit and our current moment.
That said, we have to pay attention to economic realities. Yes, our fossil fuel resources will last well into the 22nd century, even exploiting them at our current rate. But the price will continue to rise, the competition between these fossil resources as "income" (fuel) and "capitol" (plastics, foods, fertilizers) will sharpen.
If we permit the market to balance these demands on its own, there is no disagreement that the balance will be achieved by raising the price continuously and rapidly until supply and demand are back in alignment. Unfortunately, that price point will mandate the end of our middle-class driven capitalist economies.
I won't touch on the environment - except to say that there are no practical sequestration programs up and running on a sufficiently large scale to help...and no evidence that any will be viable soon. Be groovy if we found some...just as an example, bamboo sequesters 70% more carbon due to its enormous growth cycle than does a white oak.
Sure, nuclear energy, solar energy, wave energy, wind energy, etc. are not yet as efficient as fossil fuels. Na und? Actually, I recall reading recently that at the current price per kwH in Germany, solar voltaic panels have now achied parity when considering all aspects - manufacture to Abriß of the panels, digging out the coal to the power point at the users home. Nothing comes close to gasoline for cars and I am still skeptical as to whether the lithium-ion batteries which Toyota is bringing in to use will be the breakthrough they promise.
But: Why wait until people are starving in the streets, gasoline costs more than people can afford to pay (I mean really, not the perceived pain). Why be wasteful of a limited resource and create pollution just because we don't yet know with 100% certainty whether we are contributing to global warming or not? Even if we aren't, wastefulness offends my sensibilities...
Time will show whether this was really just a passing fad or not. The last time commerce broke down in our culture, it took nearly 800 years to get things more or less back up and running again...I'd rather err on the side of caution than not.
Tornadoes in Hamburg as opposed to waterspouts are not a common phenomena, although more common than many Germans believe. We have severe weather here in Munich, too with windstorms which defy belief. It's just that things have been pretty decent the last few decades and even historically normal weather for central Europe is far harsher than we have come to think it is. Americans don't build like we do, that is true. But then, we don't build anymore like we think we do - I have some acquaintances who inspect new construction for the subways here and their complaints aren't just the usual moan-piss-whine stuff, they are finding serious problems, stuff we used to pretend only happened in the US.
Thank you for such a reasoned and well thought out analysis. I don't know what the ultimate consequences of our actions will be.
Anyone who thinks of climate as a constant need only think about the origin of "peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot, nine days old" to consider just how very short a time span lies between the last time our current ice-age woke up a bit and our current moment.
That said, we have to pay attention to economic realities. Yes, our fossil fuel resources will last well into the 22nd century, even exploiting them at our current rate. But the price will continue to rise, the competition between these fossil resources as "income" (fuel) and "capitol" (plastics, foods, fertilizers) will sharpen.
If we permit the market to balance these demands on its own, there is no disagreement that the balance will be achieved by raising the price continuously and rapidly until supply and demand are back in alignment. Unfortunately, that price point will mandate the end of our middle-class driven capitalist economies.
I won't touch on the environment - except to say that there are no practical sequestration programs up and running on a sufficiently large scale to help...and no evidence that any will be viable soon. Be groovy if we found some...just as an example, bamboo sequesters 70% more carbon due to its enormous growth cycle than does a white oak.
Sure, nuclear energy, solar energy, wave energy, wind energy, etc. are not yet as efficient as fossil fuels. Na und? Actually, I recall reading recently that at the current price per kwH in Germany, solar voltaic panels have now achied parity when considering all aspects - manufacture to Abriß of the panels, digging out the coal to the power point at the users home. Nothing comes close to gasoline for cars and I am still skeptical as to whether the lithium-ion batteries which Toyota is bringing in to use will be the breakthrough they promise.
But: Why wait until people are starving in the streets, gasoline costs more than people can afford to pay (I mean really, not the perceived pain). Why be wasteful of a limited resource and create pollution just because we don't yet know with 100% certainty whether we are contributing to global warming or not? Even if we aren't, wastefulness offends my sensibilities...
Time will show whether this was really just a passing fad or not. The last time commerce broke down in our culture, it took nearly 800 years to get things more or less back up and running again...I'd rather err on the side of caution than not.
Tornadoes in Hamburg as opposed to waterspouts are not a common phenomena, although more common than many Germans believe. We have severe weather here in Munich, too with windstorms which defy belief. It's just that things have been pretty decent the last few decades and even historically normal weather for central Europe is far harsher than we have come to think it is. Americans don't build like we do, that is true. But then, we don't build anymore like we think we do - I have some acquaintances who inspect new construction for the subways here and their complaints aren't just the usual moan-piss-whine stuff, they are finding serious problems, stuff we used to pretend only happened in the US.
