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Last edited by Dr.No; November 04, 2008, 09:06 PM. -
Re: Peak Oil: Interview with Jay Hanson (Nov. 3, 2008)
Just give us the high lights Please.
Mike -
Re: Peak Oil: Interview with Jay Hanson (Nov. 3, 2008)
Crazy. He thinks the world has become so complex that only scientists and engineers can understand it. In fact he states that they should be the only people to make decisions about the future of the human race.
I don't rate him as knowledgeable AT ALL.Comment
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Re: Peak Oil: Interview with Jay Hanson (Nov. 3, 2008)
Jay Hanson seems to think a politburo - or some sort of fascist grand council - of scientists and engineers is our only hope.
That's crazy, dangerous and scary.Comment
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Re: Peak Oil: Interview with Jay Hanson (Nov. 3, 2008)
................Oh he is on Drugs!
Fine.
MikeComment
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Re: Peak Oil: Interview with Jay Hanson (Nov. 3, 2008)
Hanson on drugs?Originally posted by Mega View Post
Ha, he makes a lot of sense.
But what folly it is to imagine a bunch of scientists and engineers can run a country.Comment
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Re: Peak Oil: Interview with Jay Hanson (Nov. 3, 2008)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mega 
Just give us the high lights Please.
Mike
Hanson expects that the coming decades will see an up to 90% reduction in the number of humans on the planet due to declining world energy production and the war(s) that may be triggered by energy/resource scarcity.
He believes that the only way to avoid massive catastrophe would be large-scale investment in alternative (to hydrocarbon) sources of energy begun at least a decade or two before the peak. The build-out of such alternatives would consume a moderately significant percentage of world hydrocarbon production (used in mining, transporting, and processing the materials needed to build solar energy facilities, wind turbines, nuclear power plants, necessary infrastructure, etc.), and there would be a tough period during the transition.
However, he believes we are already at or very near the peak (at least in net energy terms *) of world hydrocarbon production, and in order to rapidly build out alternatives now that we have waited for the market to signal the problem via high hydrocarbon prices (instead of investing to solve the problem well ahead of time), up to 70% of the (soon to be rapidly declining) world hydrocarbon production will need to be spent in order to successfully implement the alternatives on a large enough scale. This would not leave much energy for the production of food, consumer goods, or personal transportation during the transition period:
He thinks the conflict over the remaining sources of hydrocarbons (vital to making this transition away from hydrocarbons) is likely to trigger a global nuclear war within around 10-15 years. He hopes he is wrong, but is afraid he is not. After all, we are animals, and might end up acting less in the spirit of co-operation, and more based on fear, aggression, and a desire to secure resources for ourselves rather than agreeing to mutually sacrifice for the benefit of the future of mankind.
One might see Hanson as a bit of a pessimist. It would certainly not be too pleasant if it turned out that he was a realist.
*Energy available for other work after subtracting the rapidly rising percentage of energy produced (well, mainly extracted) that is used (reinvested) in the energy production process itself. The rate of return on each unit of energy reinvested in future hydrocarbon production keeps declining as many small and hard to access deposits (which are often also of lower grade oil or coal) are needed to compensate for each large deposit that is depleted.Comment
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Re: Peak Oil: Interview with Jay Hanson (Nov. 3, 2008)
----nm----Comment
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Re: Peak Oil: Interview with Jay Hanson (Nov. 3, 2008)
YADDA YADDA YADDA
World Population Growth (limitless potential here ... it's like a credit card, "just charge it to my account")Originally posted by politicalfootballfan View Post
Year Population 1 200 million 1000 275 million 1500 450 million 1650 500 million 1750 700 million 1804 1 billion 1850 1.2 billion 1900 1.6 billion 1927 2 billion 1950 2.55 billion 1955 2.8 billion 1960 3 billion 1965 3.3 billion 1970 3.7 billion 1975 4 billion 1980 4.5 billion 1985 4.85 billion 1990 5.3 billion 1995 5.7 billion 1999 6 billion 2006 6.5 billion 2010 6.8 billion 2012 7 billion 2020 7.6 billion 2030 8.2 billion 2040 8.8 billion 2050 9.2 billion Comment
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Re: Peak Oil: Interview with Jay Hanson (Nov. 3, 2008)
----nm----Last edited by politicalfootballfan; February 02, 2009, 08:50 PM.Comment
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Re: Peak Oil: Interview with Jay Hanson (Nov. 3, 2008)
Indeed they were, and Plato before them. In fact, it was my years in the academic world that I spent trying to understand even I tiny part of how the world worked that finally converted me from a European liberal (socialist leaning) to a conservative with a profound respect for the social order. Anyway, that's another story.Originally posted by politicalfootballfan View Post
I heard a lot of view like Hanson's during that time, and many far worse. The man wants soviet style technical communism. His biological determinism gives that away.
No, he is a dangerous ideologue. I hope his view are continued to be ignored.Comment
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Re: Peak Oil: Interview with Jay Hanson (Nov. 3, 2008)
Dig up your own comparable population stats. Let's see if they differ significantly. What's to debate? It got a lot more crowded and the cupboard is getting bare? America was a colonized country, with a terrain and wealth of resources that were the envy of the world. Now it's getting a little skimpy in a few critical resources but we've got this funny-bone socio-political cultural artifact which we fondly refer to as "our national heritage" (more like a cultural fossil as energy supplies dwindle) that for our people resources should aways be described as springing out of a "vast land" and should aways be abundant.Originally posted by politicalfootballfan View Post
Tell that to people in parts of the world twenty times more crowded than ours. who use one tenth of our energy footprint. This is not a whiny "liberal rant" - I've until recently been a moderate Republican, but I don't endorse fond illusions. Other peoples in more crowded parts of the world without such rich resources, look at us with awe (and likely a tinge of disgust, if they are the more sophisticated observers) looking at our profligate use of resources. I lived in Europe for a decade in the 1990's. When I first came back to America I remember standing on the streetcorner, looking with bemused fascination at the gargantuan metal hulks that passed me by as transport vehicles.
They weren't there at the end of the 1980's when I had left. The term "supersize me" with all it's slightly nauseating excess comes to mind. I could not believe the hulks passing me by driven by diminutive soccer moms. It seemed like a whole different world, something dreamed up to display symbols of the gigantic as though to appease a national anxiety for substantiality.
They seemed like something out of a Disney fantasy, 10 miles per gallon heavy metal fantasies, crafted to appease the ever more anxious descendants of tough pioneers from the 1700's, whose descendants had now gone soft, and were anxiously seeking reaffirmation of their national virility by supersizing their transport vehicles to become almost comically misplaced symbols of a national vigor gone missing.
The abundant resources are not around any more, the underlying national vigor is atrophied and satieted by the wealth of resources that have been showered upon us by this vast continent, and Americans need to suck it up, stop perpetuating their dreams of past limitless consumption personified by their 20 ton chariots and pay attention to the resource constraints that are pressing in everywhere else in the world. And no, this is not a deathly dull Socialists morality play, and no-one is wearing a Calvinistic hair shirt or denying Americans their birthrights or civil liberties.
It's a plain old resources thing. Like taking the family out for Sunday dinner and checking the old wallet to make sure the funds are there to pay for the outing. The notion of an overdrawn resources budget is hard to grasp for a people in North America who have been blessed with more than most other nations have ever had in the way of resources. The world is rapidly overpopulating and Americans, as the highest per capita consumers on earth have an obligation to wake up from this 200 year long dream of limitless plenty. Not choosing to recognize this new reality risks breeding arrogance, that left unchecked can bring misfortune.
QUOTE:
James Baldwin - Novelist and commentator:
People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.
Ask people in Europe, or Southeast Asia or many other crowded, or arid places in the world, whether they consider their resources to be limitless.Comment
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Re: Peak Oil: Interview with Jay Hanson (Nov. 3, 2008)
What's more... politicians like Tony Blair and Bill Clinton will be bedding those very same expert's wives as they debate the "great issues".Originally posted by Chris View PostComment
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Re: Peak Oil: Interview with Jay Hanson (Nov. 3, 2008)
Anyone with the slightest understanding of where our resources come from, knows that this cancer of humanity has already started to kill the patient.
A 90% reduction in population is inevitable. The only question is, will we choose to do it, or will we put our children through the horror of having the planet force it upon them?
The FIRE economy is a great analogy. Many knew it was unsustainable, but the ignorant thought it could go on forever. We had a chance to wind it down with little or no pain. Now it collapses, and no one can stop it.Comment
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Re: Peak Oil: Interview with Jay Hanson (Nov. 3, 2008)
----nm----Last edited by politicalfootballfan; February 02, 2009, 08:50 PM.Comment
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