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07-23-2007, 11:12 PM #1OPSenior Member
Here today, gone tomorrow
es·cha·tol·o·gy (ĕs'kə-tŏl'ə-jē)
n.
The branch of theology that is concerned with the end of the world or of humankind.
A belief or a doctrine concerning the ultimate or final things, such as death, the destiny of humanity, the Second Coming, or the Last Judgment.DIE OFF
"If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst."
-- Thomas Hardy
Petroleum geologists have known for 50 years that global oil production would "peak" and begin its inevitable decline within a decade of the year 2000. Moreover, no renewable energy systems have the potential to generate more than a fraction of the power now being generated by fossil fuels.
In short, the transition to declining energy availability signals a transition in civilization as we know it.
The human species may be seen as having evolved in the service of entropy, and it cannot be expected to outlast the dense accumulations of energy that have helped define its niche. Human beings like to believe they are in control of their destiny, but when the history of life on Earth is seen in perspective, the evolution of Homo sapiens is merely a transient episode that acts to redress the planet's energy balance. David Price
Energy has always been the basis of cultural complexity and it always will be. The past clarifies potential paths to the future. One often-discussed path is cultural and economic simplicity and lower energy costs. This could come about through the "crash" that many fear -- a genuine collapse over a period of one or two generations, with much violence, starvation, and loss of population. The alternative is the "soft landing" that many people hope for - a voluntary change to solar energy and green fuels, energy-conserving technologies, and less overall consumption. This is a utopian alternative that, as suggested above, will come about only if severe, prolonged hardship in industrial nations makes it attractive, and if economic growth and consumerism can be removed from the realm of ideology. Joseph A. Tainter
ECONOMIC THEORY
The members of the American economics profession, as Arnold contended, performed a vital practical role in maintaining this unique system of corporate socialism American style. It was their role to prevent the American public from achieving a correct understanding of the actual workings of the American economic system. Economists instead were assigned the task to dispense priestly blessings that would allow business to operate independent of damaging political manipulation. They accomplished this task by means of their message of 'laissez faire religion, based on a conception of a society composed of competing individuals.' However false as a description of the actual U.S. economy, this vision in the mind of the American public was in practice 'transferred automatically to industrial organizations with nation-wide power and dictatorial forms of government.' Even though the arguments of economists were misleading and largely fictional, the practical -- and beneficial -- result of their deception was to throw a 'mantle of protection ... over corporate government' from various forms of outside interference. Admittedly, as the economic 'symbolism got farther and farther from reality, it required more and more ceremony to keep it up.' But as long as this arrangement worked and there could be maintained 'the little pictures in the back of the head of the ordinary man,' the effect was salutary -- 'the great [corporate] organization was secure in its freedom and independence.' It was this very freedom and independence of business professionals to pursue the correct scientific answer -- the efficient answer -- on which the economic progress of the United States depended. -- Robert H. Nelson in [ pp .............................FOOD, LAND, WATER AND POPULATION
Humans have destroyed more than 30 per cent of the natural world since 1970 with serious depletion of the forest, freshwater and marine systems on which life depends. -- [Guardian, 10/2/98]
Age-adjusted mortality in Russia rose by almost 33% between 1990 and 1994.... Russia is not alone in experiencing drops in life expectancy; all the nations created from the break-up of the Soviet Union have reported a decline in life expectancy since 1990, although none has been as large as in Russia. -- [JAMA. 1998;279:793-800]
Africa is beginning of a full-on Malthusian dieoff. See "Worldwatch Briefing: Sixteen Dimensions of the Population Problem" at Worldwatch Briefing: Sixteen Dimensions of the Population Problem | Worldwatch Institute and "Life on Earth is Killing Us" press release at http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/.../killingus.asp and study itself is here.
To put this in context, you must remember that estimates of the long-term carrying capacity of Earth with relatively optimistic assumptions about consumption, technologies, and equity (A x T), are in the vicinity of two billion people. Today's population cannot be sustained on the 'interest' generated by natural ecosystems, but is consuming its vast supply of natural capital -- especially deep, rich agricultural soils, 'fossil' groundwater, and biodiversity -- accumulated over centuries to eons. In some places soils, which are generated on a time scale of centimeters per century are disappearing at rates of centimeters per year. Some aquifers are being depleted at dozens of times their recharge rates, and we have embarked on the greatest extinction episode in 65 million years. -- Paul Ehrlich (Sept. 25, 1998)
medicinal Reviewed by medicinal on . Here today, gone tomorrow es·cha·tol·o·gy (ĕs'kə-tŏl'ə-jē) n. The branch of theology that is concerned with the end of the world or of humankind. A belief or a doctrine concerning the ultimate or final things, such as death, the destiny of humanity, the Second Coming, or the Last Judgment.DIE OFF "If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst." -- Thomas Hardy Petroleum geologists have known for 50 years that global oil production would "peak" and begin its inevitable decline Rating: 5
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