28 replies to this topic

[aaamusements]

I do not see how we can continue to keep intervening in other peoples countries. We no longer produce anything here. We are sucking the last of the North Sea oil out of the ground.
If we are not very careful we will reach a state where we can barely support our own people, let alone every other country that has a problem.

I realise that global instability threatens all of us, but we cannot continue to try and police the world. Let the emerging superpowers sort it out!

[stuart4000]

I do not see how we can continue to keep intervening in other peoples countries. We no longer produce anything here. We are sucking the last of the North Sea oil out of the ground.
If we are not very careful we will reach a state where we can barely support our own people, let alone every other country that has a problem.

I realise that global instability threatens all of us, but we cannot continue to try and police the world. Let the emerging superpowers sort it out!

There's 500 years worth of deep mine coal still in the ground of the UK.

[aaamusements]

There's 500 years worth of deep mine coal still in the ground of the UK.

If we can get it out.

More likely that we will end up burning it in situ to release the energy.

[Zoltar]

It's a sobering thought to think that by the end of this century, we may well be looking back at a time when we burnt things called gas and oil to produce energy. Many millions of years to make, and barely 200 years to find and exhaust. Gas and oil will inevitably run down and become no longer economically viable to pull from the ground.

I can see methane being produced in other ways but not in the amounts we have today. Same as oil. Synthetic substitutes that cost too much to produce. As Katie Melua mentions, will all the lights go out in just a few years or so.

Once oil and gas has been exhausted, world politics will move once more. Maybe benefitting those capable of technological advances that keep energy being produced. The west maybe becoming even stronger, the once oil producing arab states becoming 'third world' economies. Would countries like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait return to the fold and stand against the rest of the world once their cash-cow dries up?

For some years before the coal mines were shut down, the UK were pretty good at treating coal to make it more 'environmentally friendly' to burn. Our cities became smokless zones but the coal man still dropped off tonnes of the stuff to homes across the land. Maybe 50 years from now, we will be back working the mines once more in some way or another, one of just a handful of countries where the lights didn't go out.

One thing is for sure. Oil and gas is running out. Lets hope that we are far enough ahead with technology that we can flawlessly convert to alternate renewable fuels like hydrogen before our cities grind to a standstill.

[aaamusements]

Frightening isn't it?

Amazing to think that the impending energy crisis will probably affect people more than the cold war and the threat of Armageddon did - maybe even more than the world wars.

We have built an economy, and a society - in fact the very future, based on a finite resource; and we will either have to adapt very quickly or face the rather unsavoury consequences.

[jamesb99_1999]

I think people forget technology and innovation are driven by war and necessity. This will be simply be the catalyst for driving forward innovation.. More technological advances have been made because of war than through any other research, plus the oil companies/ governments have not funded/ restricted other areas of innovation for years.... We already know there are millions of alternatives to fossil fuels however we have not invested in them enough - hopefully the "crisis" will help with that - In the long term it can only be for the good in my opinion. Certainly won't ever be energy wars.....

[stuart4000]

I think in terms of the energy/climate debate it's always good to bear a couple of things in mind:

1 - Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither were humans. The human race itself has no God given right to be here, it's been an extraordinary path of evolution over millions of years that has got us to where we are now.

2 - Following on from 1, I believe that it is the complex emotional aspect of a human that leads us into the rather bleak future. I believe that some things are just natural i.e. man & woman together to raise a child, survival of the fittest, weather.... for me we spend too much time trying to change events that have been happening since the year dot.

Examples

The ill/infirm - it is compassion that leads us to spend £0000's a day through the NHS on the best healthcare, trying to prolong a life that is to all intents and purposes never going to be normal. Look in the wild, what's the natural instinct if a Lion cub cannot walk? It gets left. Some folk will view this as harsh, I see it is as natural.

The Weather - the earth heats up, the earth cools down, fact. There's far too much money, too much research at Universities for Global Warming to be dismissed now. Want to cut down on greenhouse gases? Remove methane from the arse of a cow, that'll do a damn sight more than recycling that milk carton you've just tossed into your plastics bin. I feel that all these efforts in terms of hydrogen fuel cells etc., whilst important in that they are more sustainable, are in relative vain in terms of "global warming". The sea levels will rise eventually, so why not focus on moving inland, developing ways of living in terrain that would normally be considered difficult to habitate?


That's me for now, how refreshing to have a bit of topical debate on here.

[Zoltar]

That's me for now, how refreshing to have a bit of topical debate on here.

Without trying to sound patronising, pretty much everything mentioned on this thread I agree with.

Indeed, it is war that pushes the boundaries of technology as 'jamesb99' says. New inventions that benefit the civilian world in times of peace. Same goes for the space race. Innovations there also make their way to the civilian world.

'stuart4000' mentions human nature and how we as humans, manipulate natural evolution where the weakest too are given lifes opportunity. True war mongers see war as a device to clear some human problems. A population cull that can wipe out millions maybe? Where the fittest indeed survive. Ironically, some of the 20th century's biggest advances in the medical world were due to inhumane actions by some, during wartime. Does war actually serve a human need? We see the death and destruction due to the media, but out of misery and suffering, are the seeds for a better future born?

As for the global warming argument. I've gone into detail elsewhere, wondering why recycling the odd carrier bag, or turning off my Digibox instead of leaving it on standby can aid our environment when the worlds governments actively persue the policy of doing nothing to rid the world of hydro-carbon fuel based transportation that surely does much more damage to our environment than my Digibox does. It's insulting to be honest. Like being told that I will be doing my part to save the world if I refrain from spitting into the millions of gallons of toxic fluids that pump out into our oceans.

[aaamusements]

I have to say that I have long ago abandoned the idea that we will ever be able to "control" global warming through any action we can take, individually, nationally or over the whole world.
I do however hate the gratuitous consumption and profligate waste that has become a way of life in this country, and many others, over the past few decades.