What Do We Do When We Run Out Of Resources?

Great Debates
21

Most air pollution is not, I repeat, not caused by RVs, jet skis, snowmobiles, or low-mileage luxury cars.

Most air pollution is caused by old cars that are badly out-of-tune so that their combustion process is woefully incomplete. They’re called “excessive emitters” by the smog-check crowd. These cars tend to be driven by poorer people, not by the well-off types with the “vested interests” you describe.
However, attacking the insignificant practices of the wealthy, as in your example, does illustrate the “true colors” of far too many environmentalist groups. They’re not so much out to clean up the air as they are out to bring down those rich, successful folks. Environmentalism is merely an excuse for a kind of socialism. (Some have gone so far to refer to the more extreme environmental groups as “watermelons” – green on the outside, but “red” or “pinko” on the inside.)

22

tracer: *Most air pollution is not, I repeat, not caused by RVs, jet skis, snowmobiles, or low-mileage luxury cars.

Most air pollution is caused by old cars that are badly out-of-tune so that their combustion process is woefully incomplete. […]

However, attacking the insignificant practices of the wealthy, as in your example, does illustrate the “true colors” of far too many environmentalist groups.*

“Most air pollution”? I was under the impression that all cars, trucks, and buses taken together contribute about one-third of total air pollution.

And while I agree that luxury cars and the so-called “non-road” engines aren’t the biggest polluters overall, this EPA report seems to indicate that their pollution isn’t really “insignificant”. Non-road engines produce amounts of some pollutants comparable to the total amounts generated by highway pollution, and the “recreational spark-ignition” vehicles add up to about 15% of some of those amounts.

*They’re not so much out to clean up the air as they are out to bring down those rich, successful folks. *

:confused: I don’t think that anybody’s resource use should be criticized untruthfully or unfairly, of course, but I’m kind of puzzled by your use of class-warfare language here. How, exactly, is it “bringing down” anybody to point out that their consumption choices happen to have comparatively low energy efficiency and high emissions?

Seems to me that p-w’s specific criticism there is not directed at people in any particular socioeconomic category (and after all, many RV’ers and snowmobilers, for example, aren’t particularly wealthy), but just at people on the high end of the energy-waste and pollution-generation spectrum. How is it “bringing people down” to wish that they would spend their money on things that are less bad for the environment?

You’d think it would hardly be controversial to point out, as Threadkiller notes, that in general, we’re a very wasteful society. Almost certainly, if we do manage at some point to attain a more eco-friendly state of social and economic activity that doesn’t have such a harsh impact on the environment, it’s going to have to involve (among other things) a higher general level of “environmental thriftiness” throughout the society. More of us are going to have to reject as unacceptably harmful activities that waste lots of energy and generate lots of pollution—even if we think they’re fun and have the money to afford them. That’s not “socialism,” it’s simple common sense.

23

Thoughtful, but not quite as probing as necessary. Those cars the “poor folks” are driving are hand-me-downs…from richer people. Out-of-tune caddies and RV make a hell of a lot more pollution than out-of-tune VW and Toyotas. In fact new caddies and RVs make double or triple the pollution my car does. By rights, they should be legally forced to drive 1/3 as much as I do, wouldn’t you agree?

Anyway Kimstu was correct, I was using cars as an example because most people understand how cars pollute. People who decide they “need” to take vacations every year 5,000 miles away from their homes probably pollute even more.

By the way, being an environmentalist, having belonged to Greenpeace, I’ll hazard my observation that ecologists are anything but uneducated and poor. It has nothing to do with a class war, it has to do with people who don’t give a damn about ecological damage, so long as their creature comforts aren’t mussed.

24

Really? Do you mean “gone up relative to some defined point in time”, or do you mean “at an all-time high”? Because I can assure you that gold is not at an all time high, nor even near it, even if you do not adjust for inflation. And as for natural gas…gas markets have been so volatile over the last 4 years (thank you Enron and Dynegy) that you cannot really compare them with the past. I think you need to look to better models for natural gas pricing, such as the EPRI E-EPIC report.

What is the publication date of this reference?

25

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by partly_warmer *
**Prices have NOT dropped, as my source makes clear.

Also, here’s a quote from the “Canadian National Resources” site: “By October 1993, the inflation-adjusted prices of nickel, copper, zinc and leadwere at all-time lows, but they have recovered quite strongly since then.”**
[/QUOTE[
That may be so, but with all due respect, does that mean anything? Isn’t that a situation particular to Canada’s Sask and Alberta economy rebounds near that time frame? Or am I thinking of the Athabaska Tar Sands issue again?

It’s not really nice to challenge people here in Great Debates on their qualifications or lack thereof unless you are willing to provide proof of your own, via your IRL identity or by extensive posting experience.

26

It seems to me that it is inevitable that resources that are finite, and are being used at an increasing rate, will be exhausted in some reasonable time frame. Why that contention is considered “alarmist” might well have more to do with political and social opinions than logic. The alteration of the environment caused by the processes of gaining additional resources is also an undeniable fact. How much one values the resources, and how much one values the original state of the environment don’t seem to be much related to the specifics of cause and effect.

Would one of the posters who considers himself to be staunchly anti-environmentalist, heavily pro-freemarket, and adamantly pro-technology please just answer the point. Is it totally pointless to consider that changing our patterns of use of resources could be more beneficial to the population than developing more and more methods of harvesting those resources from more and more places? Perhaps the doom predictions are wrong, but the fact of resource scarcity is not a prediction, it is an observed phenomenon.

Every new technology has a cost. Electric cars, using projected technology will cause the release of more pollutants than the use of fossil fuels does now. More lead, more cadmium, and more radioactivity than now are released by the Nuclear Power industry would enter the ecosystem if our current auto use were to be replaced by battery powered autos. The energy to power those cars would have to come from somewhere, and whatever source it was, there would be ecological consequences. Is it not possible to consider alternative strategies?

I am not a back to nature guy. But I do think that a nation of people who know quite well that they waste more than they use has something to think about, as the pile of stuff that we need grows smaller, no matter how large the pile is. Yes, cost will compel some measure of conservation, eventually. Does that mean we ought not attempt to conserve until we start actually running out of stuff?

Conservation doesn’t make anyone rich. That’s the real problem, with implementing it. If it would make ten guys a billion dollars a year, they could afford to make enough political contributions to get the idea declared a Patriotic Duty. Profit is very patriotic.

Tris

“I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.” ~ John Locke ~

27

As they say in Massachussets, “we’ll drive off that bridge when we get to it”.

28

In the interests of preserving resources I propose an end to the following, wasteful and unnecessary products:

  1. Ironing boards and irons - we can survive with crinkly clothes, right?
  2. Cars - who needs em?
  3. Guns and other military products - again not needed (I am being utopian here).
  4. Paperwork - this great evil should be completely replaced by well designed information technology, although I will permit news papers with no more than one section.
  5. Children’s toys - they can just make do with an old stick like I used to.
  6. The thousands of other things we do not need and which do not benefit us in any way other than keeping people in employment.
29

Ah, what might have been! If only you’d been sucessful in developing your telekinetic powers, you could have used them to bollux the film projector.

30

Here are two interesting web sites on oil resources and the possibility not of them “running out” but becoming scarce in terms of meeting demand.

One problem with energy sources is that there is no equivalent source to replace oil. Oil is easy to produce, easy to transport and easy to use for energy as well as for many other important uses (fertilizers, plastics, etc).

Alternative power sources are expensive partly (as said above) because of low use, but partly because they are not energy equivalent to oil, coal and gas. It is only recently for example that solar cells have been able to even payback (in energy generated) the energy investment in making them (ie - it took more energy to make a solar cell than you could get out of it during it’s working lifetime) - making solar power a power sink - not source. Even now the payback on solar cells is low compared to oil/coal/gas/nuclear. At current technologies we cannot supply all of our needs from solar (and not without a huge investment in time and resources to even get a significant amount of current demand - much less the increased demands of tomorrow).

Hydro power is not a growth field either - all the easily tapped resources are already in play - and hydro takes up a lot of otherwise productive land, we will not be able to easily grow hydro significantly either.

Nuclear power can become a bigger player (and will have to short of successful fusion power generation) but we are way behind on nuclear and have not built a new plant in decades and the plants we have will soon be reaching their productive lifetimes (some are already stretched past the original shut down design dates).

The problem we have is that the economists always say " when demand goes up - the supply will be found to meet it as prices go up" and that is true until the actual physical resources start to hit an upper limit. The earth (big as it is) is finite and unless we start making some big changes in our energy planning (like fixing fusion, perfecting solar/hydro, making smaller cheaper safer nuclear plants) we are going to be facing a big problem as oil becomes scarcer, and more expensive. We cannot switch quickly to another source. We need to be switching now if we are to avoid a big dislocation.

I am not a geologist ( but many life-long geologists - who worked for oil companies) are saying that we will soon (within 20 years, mabye within 10) reach the point where demand for oil will be higher than the supply can physically be produced. When that happens our economies will have a large shock as oil prices go way up, and our lifestyles will have to change to relfect the reality of the end of cheap oil.

The quicker we start to prepare for that day the easier the changeover will be (not to mention we can use the remaining oil for the other important uses like fertilizers - without which we cannot sustain a growing food supply).

I am not some alarmist, I always laughed at “end of the world” predictions, but after looking into the oil supply in a detailed way I am starting to get a little worried about what might happen in the near future if these scientists are correct about the peak of production.
http://www.princeton.edu/hubbert/index.html

http://www.oilcrisis.com/

31

By the way, how about fresh water? Are any areas of the world close to the point of not having enough?

32

Fresh water is becoming a problem - but it also boils down to energy in a way. In other words, with enough energy fresh water can be generated by desalination of sea water. Of course this is expensive even at today’s energy prices, so water shortages will exacerbate any energy shortage and water rights already lead to shooting wars and incidents.

With water and energy becoming more expensive, food is right behind. We generate enough food for the world now (it’s not properly distributed but if it was or could be everyone would have enough today) but it takes a lot of oil to do so - most of the world food supply (and distribution) is heavily dependent on oil both for running the tractors/cultivaters/etc and for the mega fertilizers to keep yields high enough to offset land loss plus irrigation and distribution of the food.
Everyone might soon need that backyard garden (or neighberhood garden) to supplement their food intake - but how do you do that in a city of NY’s size? Even of Denver’s size?

Every have a happy 4th of July (and if you are not in the US, enjoy your regular weekends)!

adamant

33

Fresh water is becoming a problem - but it also boils down to energy in a way. In other words, with enough energy fresh water can be generated by desalination of sea water. Of course this is expensive even at today’s energy prices, so water shortages will exacerbate any energy shortage and water rights already lead to shooting wars and incidents.

With water and energy becoming more expensive, food is right behind. We generate enough food for the world now (it’s not properly distributed but if it was or could be everyone would have enough today) but it takes a lot of oil to do so - most of the world food supply (and distribution) is heavily dependent on oil both for running the tractors/cultivaters/etc and for the mega fertilizers to keep yields high enough to offset land loss plus irrigation and distribution of the food.
Everyone might soon need that backyard garden (or neighberhood garden) to supplement their food intake - but how do you do that in a city of NY’s size? Even of Denver’s size?

Every have a happy 4th of July (and if you are not in the US, enjoy your regular weekends)!

adamant

34

[crying indian chief on horseback]Bwaahh haaa haaa haaa haa ha[/crying indian chief on horseback]

35

Ok, apology due here about cite of costs (not about years of known reserves). I knew this table very well, but for some reason when I took a quick look, I misread where an arrow pointed. I’m particularly sorry about this, since I knew what the table said, believed it, but then misread it for the purposes of this thread.

Of the exploration targets, 10 increased in cost, even counting inflation.

Except two, once inflation is counted in, prices decreased.

The publication date of the book is 1994. The period the table covers is 1960 to 1990.

The commodity which experienced the highest rise was Natural Gas, though.

Please note though, all, that this side issue doesn’t affect the other issues of this thread one way or the other.

36

Kimstu wrote:

Hmmm! I was under the impression, based on something-or-other I remember seeing on PBS some years ago, that “excessive emitters” (badly out-of-tune motor vehicles) accounted for roughly 50% of all urban smog.

Obviously, we can’t both be right on this. I can’t find any cites for the breakdown of total air pollution by category – you wouldn’t happen to have such a cite handy, wouldja?

[sub]Oh, and before there’s any chance to misinterpret: By “air pollution”, I do not include the emission of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. I mean particulates, incomplete combustion products, sulfur and nitrogen compounds – you know, “smog.”[/sub]

37

For another source who has, for the most part, correctly predicted the price and avaliblity of resources check out Julian Simon. Do a google search.

For a quick link check out http://www.mrcranky.com/movies/angelsandinsects/10/5.html

Simon, who took on doom and gloom sayers like Paul Ehrlich and Bjorn Lomborg, has a record of being right that is very hard to beat.

What I find really disturbing is that Ehrlich, who claimed in ‘The Population Bomb’ in 1968 that “famine would kill 65 million in the “Great Die-Off” in the U.S of the 1980s.”, is still considered valid even though his predictions are worth about the same as monkey spunk. Somehow I think that being wrong for 30 + years would make Ehrlich re-think his theories but I guess even PHD’s get in a rut.

Slee

38

Fellow posters - please forgive me if I am wrong on these stats. My understanding on the world’s current supplys of fresh water as follows…

(1) Only 2.4% of the world’s water is “fresh water”.

(2) Of all the world’s “fresh water”, only 35% of it is NOT frozen.

(3) Of all the word’s “fresh water” which is NOT frozen, 40% of it exists in the Great Lakes of North America alone (you lucky buggers)

(4) The LEAST amount of “fresh water” on the planet is found in Australia.

These issues obviously are already starting to be addressed quite seriously down here in Australia for obvious reasons. As a continent, we are blessed with an obscene amount of mineral wealth - albeit finite as it ultimately is. Already, however, “fresh water” supplies are becoming a problem. It’s generally accepted that our population is reaching it’s upper limits before we’ll start causing too many resource problems for Australia’s ecology.

Interestingly, two areas of constant energy are rarely, if ever discussed.

(1) The Earth’s mantle - by and large - is only 50klm thick. Underneath that is an extraordinary supply of molten rock - which translated equals lots and lots of heat - which in theory could be tapped by steam piping. Steam is good - it follows any pipe in any direction. It can then pump electricity turbines.

(2) Of all the energy the Sun pumps out every 24 hours, only a miniscule fraction of it hits Earth. If we could catch just a tiny bit which passes us close by and feed it back down to Earth we could, in theory, have amazing energy supplies.

39

There were loads of now hilarious doom and gloom textbooks penned in the 70’s – Barry Commoner, I think had “The Politics of Energy”, but at the time, the real crock to read now is all the “Coming Ice Age” which made the cover of newsweek.

To hedge their bets now, they often refer to it as “Climate change” rather than global warming. The real issue is twofold at least – Whether it is human caused (debateable) and whether we could do anything about it even if we wanted to.

In my mind it is far more about political control then it is the environment.

40

Well, then, you Aussies’d better get crackin’ on either:[LIST=A][li]de-salinization technology (extracting fresh water from ocean water),[/li][li]Maneuvering some of those antarctic icebergs into your harbors, or[/li]Damming up your rivers before all that fresh water gets dumped uselessly into the ocean.[/LIST]