Treat the Earth Well

[halfer]

A lot of interesting points, but nevertheless scepticism about CC comes from the discomforting prospect of radical social change. No two ways about it, human society is scared of upheaval, and generally with good reason! But in so doing we worsen the deal for future generations, who have to deal with the mess we've sustained through our collective and deliberate omission, obfuscation and procrastination.

Scepticism on CC is directly opposed to the general direction of scientific opinion, but if sceptics here are in fact climate scientists, they should say so. For those of us who are not, I tend to prefer to refer to experts - just in the same way as I try to let doctors have their say occasionally

I think @lemmy touches on the most important point - economic considerations presently trump environmental ones. For me, this means that our economic system needs to change, which undoubtedly poses more unsettling social change, again to be opposed by those who favour the comfort of the status quo.

 

[flecc]

There is one undeniable truth: that oil will run out, in anywhere from between 10 and 50 years time.

It most certainly is deniable and I emphatically deny it now!

We will be driving oil powered cars for at least another 50 years and other oil powered vehicles for very much longer, aircraft in particular for at least 100 years yet.

Peak oil predictions are a fantasy, I saw what you've said published in the 1960s, again in the 1970s and it's been toted ever since. In those earliest decades, oil had not been exploited in the North Sea, Alaska, the Mexican Gulf, Venezuela, the Russian satellite countries like the "stans", Libya, the Chinese coast et al, and the possibilities of places like eastern Alaska and the Falklands had not even been thought of.

The Libyan fields alone will be vast, why do you think the West has made peace with this terrorist nation now? Around the globe there will be fresh discoveries of any number of new resources, we have hardly tapped the potential yet, and new technologies will make available formerly unreachable sources. The deep undersea extraction we do now wasn't even a pipe dream 40 years ago.

Much as it may be unpopular in this forum, present day independent electric vehicles are a joke. The viable e-bikes are not fully electric, they are electric assisted and only carry the odd person, and those vehicles which can operate independently like e-scooters have silly short ranges and many other limitations.

There isn't the vaguest possibility that independent electric power can comprehensively replace i.c for many decades to come, if only because the supply infrastructure would have to be so vast. We would need not an increase but a large multiple of our power station numbers, and they'd all need to be nuclear for carbon limitation reasons. Done throughout the Western world, this would immediately present a far more serious uranium shortage than any possible impending oil shortage.

The same applies to hydrogen directly burnt or used in fuel cells, the sheer quantities required could only be produced by similarly vast nuclear energy resources.

Members and their children will be driving i.c vehicles for their lifetimes.
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[jerrysimon]

There is one undeniable truth: that oil will run out, in anywhere from between 10 and 50 years time.

There are huge oil reserves in the Antarctic. Its just the cost of extraction and the Antarctic Treaty preventing that at the moment. Given every Country is fighting for presence and membership there, I am guessing that would no doubt change when other reserves start to run out.

Regards

Jerry

 

[halfer]

The Libyan fields alone will be vast, why do you think the West has made peace with this terrorist nation now?

Ahem! Assuming you're a Briton, stones and glass-houses come to mind.

I somewhat agree with your position on the viability of electric vehicles, though of course they are only as green as their input energy, and they will also improve as technology improves. But the degree to which the internal combustion engine and the jet engine are necessary, is related to the degree to which Western society is willing to reduce its lifestyle of consumption. It is pointless for me to promise not to fly London to New York if few others make the same promise, but if whole nations do, then the total emission reductions make a worthwhile and necessary difference.

I don't know much about peak oil, but even if you are right to be doubtful, the precautionary principle of reducing CO2 emissions (Bob's "just in case") is still the scientific consensus.

 

[tangent]

What happened to the concerns over the hole in the ozone layer? Big scare amounting to nothing. Apparently the hole's are ever changing and are currently smaller than they were. It was only discovered in 1985 but could have been there for millions of years.

Just because ozone hole scare stories in the Daily Mail or whatever have stopped does not mean that the problem has gone away. Ozone depletion continues and causes more UV and microwave radiation to reach the Earths surface than would be the case had we not pumped CFCs into the atmosphere. Fortuneately the banning of CFCs appears at the moment to have prevented ozone depletion from becoming a catastrophe (at least to humans).

 

[flecc]

Ahem! Assuming you're a Briton, stones and glass-houses come to mind.

I don't know much about peak oil, but even if you are right to be doubtful, the precautionary principle of reducing CO2 emissions (Bob's "just in case") is still the scientific consensus.

Agreed, I was quoting the official Western view of Libyan status, it's not my own.

As for the CO2 emissions, they are beside the point if there is no alternative to oil use. As someone else implied, we will continue to put our own comfort and convenience first and hang the consequences. The scientific consensus on the precautionary principle will take second place in practice despite the fine promises, since governments are as bad as the public at adopting that which is not convenient.
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[lemmy]

we have hardly tapped the potential yet, and new technologies will make available formerly unreachable sources. The deep undersea extraction we do now wasn't even a pipe dream 40 years ago.

In a previous post, I mentioned that the developing nations will want the same opportunities and personal transport that we have. That is 1.6 billion people in China and India alone.

At the same car ownership rate that we have in the UK, 1 for every two people. (unless, of course we somehow propose to ban them from aspiring to the standard of living we have) that would mean, eventually, 1.15 billion cars. That is at present day population, though these are growing at a high rate. This excludes, of course, Africa and Indonesia, any growth in Russia and so on.

I'm not suggesting these figures will come to pass in the raw form here - I seem to be in a minority who do not believe they have irrefutable predictions about the future - but assuming they are even a tenth of this, where will all this oil come from?

We seem stuck in a mindset that history has stopped and will remain where it is now forever. It was summed up by good old GB, really - the end of boom and bust. Trouble was, like predictions about oil or anything else, if it is said with a straight face, too many people in too many places will believe it.

We don't know, we are always just guessing. As such, it would make sense to conserve oil, rather than waste it, regardless of global warming.

It seems to me, therefore, that it would be as well to assume as a working hypothesis that oil supplies are not inexhaustible until someone can prove beyond doubt that they are

 

[flecc]

I'm not suggesting these figures will come to pass in the raw form here - I seem to be in a minority who do not believe they have irrefutable predictions about the future - but assuming they are even a tenth of this, where will all this oil come from?

As such, it would make sense to conserve oil, rather than waste it, regardless of global warming.

The oil will be found in quantities not even dreamed about today, but of course one day eventually it will run out. Not in our own foreseeable futures though.

I do agree that burning the stuff is madness and always has been, it's far too valuable to use to heat buildings and propel almost all vehicles. We should have conserved it for it's chemical and plastics uses, developed our facilities and lifestyles to avoid unnecessary travel and developed more universally available and flexible public transport facilities.

But we didn't and won't, hence my predictions on continued oil use almost to the bitter end.
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[JuicyBike]

I do agree that burning the stuff is madness and always has been, it's far too valuable to use to heat buildings and propel almost all vehicles. We should have conserved it for it's chemical and plastics uses, developed our facilities and lifestyles to avoid unnecessary travel and developed more universally available and flexible public transport facilities.
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+1 from me

 

[tangent]

But we didn't and won't, hence my predictions on continued oil use almost to the bitter end.
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And after that we will start making the stuff from coal.

I share Flecc's pessimism about this. It was difficult enough to get CFCs banned and the lobby groups involved with those were nothing compared with the vested interests in gasoline.

It is only very recently that the political consensus moved to accept that man made global warming was a fact. The difficulty now is that the consequences of global warming are far from clear and we are all still playing games such as "Why should I cut my usage? Look at what XYZ are doing!".

 

[NRG]

Flecc is right, oil is not about to run out anytime soon. There are vast oil fields yet to be tapped and existing oil fields previously thought to be 'empty' are being revisited as the technology used for mapping them has become more sophisticated and accurate. Unreachable deposits can now be accessed with more precise drilling guided by this improved mapping.

Oil is not just used for transport it touches all our lives in so many ways such as in the manufacture of plastics and electronics.

What we need to be concerned with is food and water supply as the global population is continuing to grow and the consumption of western nations is disproportionate to that of the third world and developing nations.

 

[flecc]

What we need to be concerned with is food and water supply as the global population is continuing to grow and the consumption of western nations is disproportionate to that of the third world and developing nations.

Indeed, and there is only one answer to this and all eventual shortages, a drastic reduction in population. Modern techniques in agriculture and manufacturing mean that the need for vast labour forces can be a thing of the past, making a world of one billion people viable. At that level the resources will last much longer than with our present nearing seven billion population, and some of the supposedly non-renewable resources limited regeneration rates will extend their life.

The natural production of oil and coal hasn't ceased, it continues in amounts that can be useful for a smaller population.
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[Scimitar]

I do agree that burning the stuff is madness and always has been, it's far too valuable to use to heat buildings and propel almost all vehicles. We should have conserved it for it's chemical and plastics uses, developed our facilities and lifestyles to avoid unnecessary travel and developed more universally available and flexible public transport facilities.

I said exactly that thirty years ago and no bugger listened.
To hell with it, I thought, and got on with being an energy pig like everybody else.
Apropos of the difficult-to-extract:
I laughed like a drain when Thatcher denied the existence of Falklands oil - I knew then that deepwater extraction techniques being developed in the North Sea and other areas would eventually be applied to the Falklands, so it made perfect sense to hang on to what we had. My source was a summary in a science rag published in 1980.
Malvinas, my ass.

 

[2ndSimon]

Anyone interested in oil should check out the Oil Drum website, there are a lot of very knowledgeable people on there.

I personally don't buy into still having oil for 50 years (not at today's production rate anyway) or flying aeroplanes like we do.

Anyone ever heard of Hubbert's Peak? While running out of oil predictions has been happening for the last 40 years his theory has been proved true time and again.

Mexico, North Sea? all in decline...where are the massive new fields taking their place? We are now resorting to drilling miles under the sea bed, and these new billion barrel discoveries.. we use oil globally at over 85 MILLION barrels a day, 1 billion barrels will not last long at that rate.

And forget about tar sands, that'll never make up the shortfall let alone the devastation that it causes.

On population, I haven't got it to hand so will dig it out later. To reduce our population to 1 billion is no mean feat. It would mean a massive die-off in a scale unimaginable and at a rate that would shock even those who lived through the world wars. To reduce to 1 billion would mean losing more than the total loss of life in WW1 *every day*

 

[2ndSimon]

Also why is it that OPEC countries reserves rates have either gone up or unchanged?

It's because their reserves dictate how munch oil they can sell, so no point publishing a low amount!

Also no one has a clue how much the Saudi's have..but we are reliant on a couple of giant fields that have been in production for over 60 years. Also why are they investing huge sums in off-shore drilling rigs - this is the desert after-all !

 

[Scimitar]

And forget about tar sands, that'll never make up the shortfall let alone the devastation that it causes.

Well, exactly so. A couple of years ago there was a huge hoohah about the Canadian tar sands. Plenty of oil there, for sure, but at the current rate of usage it would last six years - buggrall really.

 

[CheKmx]

Peak oil alarm revealed by secret official talks | Environment | The Observer
Saw this today. Even supposed optimistic organisation are talking about 2030.

 

[Old Timer]

I'm sceptical about manmade global warming for many reasons. Without doubt the planet has gone through many period's of being much warmer and colder. Considering that one minor volcanic eruption similar to that in Iceland recently is responsible for spewing far more carbons into the atmosphere than all other sources put together, I can't see mankinds attempts at reducing carbon emissions having any worthwhile impact, especially while developing countries are still developing and the worlds population continue's to grow.
Regarding scientific research, In most cases scientists have to prove there is need for research before getting funded, so its highly unlikely they'd simply discount global warming as a natural phenomenom.
What happened to the concerns over the hole in the ozone layer? Big scare amounting to nothing. Apparently the hole's are ever changing and are currently smaller than they were. It was only discovered in 1985 but could have been there for millions of years.
No one ever mentions it, but there must be some benefits to global warming?

Agreed Tony

 

[flecc]

Mexico, North Sea? all in decline...where are the massive new fields taking their place? We are now resorting to drilling miles under the sea bed, and these new billion barrel discoveries.. we use oil globally at over 85 MILLION barrels a day, 1 billion barrels will not last long at that rate.

Who said they weren't? Libya, the "stans" in the Russian fringe countries, many more ocean sources, Siberia, Eastern Alaska, all have huge resources, and much of the northern oceans are gradually opening up with global warming and they have large reserves. Together these reserves are vast, and many more will be found. I'm not talking about nonsense like tar sands but real available oil in the future.

To reduce our population to 1 billion is no mean feat. It would mean a massive die-off in a scale unimaginable and at a rate that would shock even those who lived through the world wars. To reduce to 1 billion would mean losing more than the total loss of life in WW1 *every day*

That's just plain silly of course and is not an objection, we don't need an instant solution. As I said, population reduction is the only solution if the doom mongers on climate change are right, and that could happen over time by voluntary reduction or be forced on us by said climate change decimating human life. If climate change doesn't happen as predicted, it will be shortages of all resources that will drastically reduce the human population.

The human race will die out on this planet ultimately, the cause and when it happens just isn't known yet.
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[Barnowl]

"My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel."

attributed to Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Emir of Dubai.

On the bright side the future for pedal power and provision for cyclists has to be rosy. Bikes for those wastefull local trips and cars for distance. As oil prices inevitably continue to inflate faster than Candidates for Day time TV progs I think it's inevitable. And an excellent option it is too.