The Long Emergency
Somewhere between Cassandra's prophecy and science fiction.
posted by cho @ 1:30 AM
1 comments
The L'Hopital Forum
From parties to work, you'll always have a more updated blog than Reza's.
From parties to work, you'll always have a more updated blog than Reza's.
Somewhere between Cassandra's prophecy and science fiction.
posted by cho @ 1:30 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Admittedly didn't get a chance to read it all the way through, but kind of bunk. Understated, rational lines like "most knowledgeable experts revised their predictions and now concur that 2005 is apt to be the year of all-time global peak production. It will change everything about how we live" should tip you off to that.
Basic economic theory: these claims are always exaggerated because when demand outstrips supply, price goes up- when price goes up, consumers decrease use and shift to substitutes. Moreover, nightmare depletion scenarios are always based on current reserves, and historically, worldwide reserves have *always* grown with time as new technologies are used to discover additional reserves that were previously inaccessible.
So in effect, while he's right that there will be an uncomfortable shift away from energy consumption as consumers move along various indifference curves, it's fucking asinine to suggest with any degree of certainty that (paraphrasing) "it's widely accepted that the energy crisis will hit in 2005, and it will cause civil strife in the United States."
Get a fucking grip, James.
On the other hand, it sure would be nice to just cut the middle east's legs out from underneath it and entirely eliminate America's dependence on oil-producing nations, but that's the similarly unrealistic fantasy side of this fantasy/nightmare coin.
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