Resources for everyone

[Fred56]

We already know that if everyone in China owned a car the oil industry would not be able to supply the fuel. Never mind the calculations for China's eventual energy needs, or India's, or Africa's. Supplies of oil are only just keeping up with current demand from developed countries, so the supply chain will need to about treble in size to cope with the coming demand, and the industry admits it simply will not be able to do this.

 

But we continue to cut down 200 and 300 year old trees because people want furniture, and houses. The demand for resources continues to accelerate, and we can't be all that far from the point where we just use them all up. Like the collapse of the North Atlantic cod fishery, it wasn't until they were all gone that anyone noticed.

 

Everyone knows that if the ice melts, it's over for us. I mean I can't envisage what sort of world it will be with most of the large cities under tens of metres of water, as well as much of the usable land, and most of the freshwater systems supplied by mountain glaciers and snowmelt shut down because there won't be any more snow.

[iNow]

The ice is already melting, and will continue to do so for some time. We must change our habits yesterday, or today at the very latest, to just have a chance.

 

Societal perception is already changing, but there is a huge behavioral and technological inertia to overcome. We need more momentum supporting the required changes, and more people working in mutual support toward our common goal.

 

The awareness is finally here, but the solutions are still lagging behind. This will be a defining period in human history. Hopefully there will be historians around to write about it someday.

[Sisyphus]

The answer, of course, is simple, and of course it is easier said than done. Renewable resources have to be rationed. Non-renewables have to be replaced with renewables.

 

It is interesting to me the particular resources you choose to talk about. Fossil fuels are the only non-renewable resource you mention. Lumber, fisheries, and fresh water are all limitless if we manage them responsibly.

[Pangloss]

Yup. And we already do in the US, but of course the demand to continue managing them responsibly grows every day, while our attention often flags and wanes. We need more good people going into Forestry, for example, to keep the paper companies honest. That was a classic tragedy of the commons scenario and we were lucky to escape that debacle.

 

And we could face it again if we don't ensure that the rules are enforced. It would be nice if we could somehow shine a positive light on the importance of government service (like regulatory officials) and make it popular again.

 

And then of course there's the international scene. Other countries lost the forestry battle, and still other countries are still threatened but have a chance if enough effort is made. We need to continue to export technology and encourage and support more joint treaties that deal with these issues, even if they are slightly disparate (causing us to make more effort than others).

 

Such is the opinion of an annoyed-with-government, right-of-center, well-above-average-income taxpayer. If I can be convinced, most other people can as well. Public education and (especially) intelligent, objective, open-minded discourse are the keys.

[Fred56]

How many of you would be happy to pay $10US for petrol? Or not be allowed to drive a vehicle (unless it is a hybrid). Such things could well be in everyone's future.

[Pangloss]

Well I wouldn't mind, but then I don't drive a whole lot compared with most people. Typically 6,000 miles per year, but often a lot less. That's way below the national average, though.

[ydoaPs]

Well I wouldn't mind, but then I don't drive a whole lot compared with most people. Typically 6,000 miles per year, but often a lot less. That's way below the national average, though.

 

It'd have a considerable initial cost if most of the country did that. I think much of the country lives beyond biking distance from their place of employment.

[Fred56]

Here's something I posted months ago on another site: (sorry if it's a bit polemical)

 

Could it be that there are just too many of us, too many humans using or wanting to use too many resources at once, such that this burden is becoming too much for the planet to take? Most people in the "developed" world have cars to drive around in and simply could not imagine doing without the convenience and comfort. Most might agree that something has to be done about all the CO2 going into the atmosphere but would be very reluctant to give up their vehicles, their personal transport devices. Gee, if only someone could come up with a way to run the things on something that doesn't release any bad stuff. But would this really save the day? If we do manage to drastically cut emissions and the global mean temperature doesn't go up by more than 2 degrees, will that mean we can then continue to "develop" our planet without changing it so much that it becomes unliveable? Are we going to "rescue" ourselves from global warming only to succumb to over-use of resources so the oceans are empty of fish and the trees are all gone?

[ydoaPs]

Gee, if only someone could come up with a way to run the things on something that doesn't release any bad stuff.

 

IIRC, biodiesel has significantly reduced emissions.

[Fred56]

biodiesel

This doesn't come for free, it has a "carbon footprint" even before it gets used. The idea being that biodiesel and other biofuels recycle atmospheric carbon, so there is no net increase. But the process itself uses energy.

[Sisyphus]

I don't believe that biodiesel is a very good option. To it's advantage, it is a renewable resource, can be used in the same contexts as fossil fuels, and can be produced entirely domestically. On the downside, it is simply very inefficient. It does take a considerable amount of energy to produce, and it still causes significant pollution. More importantly, though, is the sheer amount of biomatter needed. Currently corn and soy are the biggest sources of biodiesel (largely because of the political influence of corn and soy farmers), and there isn't enough land in the world to grow enough to produce enough biofuels to replace fossil fuels as an energy source.

 

That said, there is promising research towards using certain algaes instead, which could potentially be orders of magnitude more efficient in terms of land use. (But again, farmers, who have huge political influence and already know how to grow corn but not algae, have slowed things down quite a bit.) Also, even if it isn't practical as a full replacement (and it isn't), there's no reason it can't be one component of a much larger approach involving a range of different technologies.

 

This is probably what will happen, actually. No one energy source is likely to be able to replace oil anytime soon. Luckily, we have a range of alternatives to share the load, with very rapid research in several areas. What I predict is that wind, solar, hydro, biofuel, tidal, and probably otheres as well will all compete in a patchwork system, with nuclear (which obviously has its own problems but can last a very long time and has the capacity to handle it) taking up the slack until better options are able to take over.

[Fred56]

What do you think could be done (for example), about the Brazilian Govt's latest ploy to open up large areas of what are supposed to be rainforest reserves, ostensibly for the building of new townships for homeless people, but actually to allow loggers access, via the new roads? What about the large increases in the developed world of the use of nitrates to help depleted soils to support more crops - a lot of this ends up in rivers and then in the sea where large anoxic "dead zones" get created? What about China's near-exponential growth and its building of more and more coal-fired power stations? It's a pretty long list, these are just a handful...

 

I'm not advocating just sitting back and throwing our hands up in the air, but these issues are things governments deal with. So can we pressure them, or elect the "right" guys for the job? Can we prevent China from creating a great big cloud of sulphates from all that coal (maybe by helping them to build alternatives like renewable energy sources)? The people Brazil is supposedly helping out (by building new towns for them) really have no political voice (but the loggers and cattle ranchers certainly do). So the pressure there would need to be on Brazil's leaders and on certain fairly rich and powerful businessmen. But you should expect arguments along the lines of: "the land is needed", "the wood is a valuable resource", and "the forest can grow back again".

[Pangloss]

China is a real concern. They're a much worse situation than dealing with American lack of concern for the environment, because unlike the US, where you always have that chance to win hearts and minds, China is institutionally uninterested and defensive about its internal policies and practices.

 

Ironically, one of the biggest international sufferers of Chinese air pollution policy is the United States, being the first major country across the pacific in line to deal with their high-altitude atmospheric output.

[Fred56]

Not to mention all the Chinese living in cities.