[Pretorian]

Unless of course you find it to be entertaining or it rubs your ego or something.


""The rapid consumption of coal is but a single instance of wasteful expenditure of the stores which during countless ages have been gathered together seemingly for the use of man. In this country (America,) I need not dwell upon the fact that, in many other ways, man is consuming, if not wasting, supplies of earth-wealth which cannot be replaced. It is not merely what is found within tho earth, but the store of wealth which clothes the earth's surface, which is thus being exhausted. Your mighty forests seem capable of supplying all the timber that the whole race of man could need for ages; yet a very moderate computation of the rate at which they are being cut down, and will presumably continue to be, by a population increasing rapidly in numbers and in the destructive capabilities which characterize modern civilization, would show that this country will be denuded of its forest wealth in about the same period which we in England have calculated as probably limiting the effective duration of our stores of coal."

Mr Proctor, December of 1874

[Sixstrings]

Interesting quote but I can't figure out your angle, what's your point exactly?

[Pretorian]

Interesting quote but I can't figure out your angle, what's your point exactly?

My point is that humanity will not stop until the last tree is cut and the last fish is caught with help of the last drops of petrol or last crumbs of coal. My point is that The Doom must come way before that if anyone or anything want to have any chance of survival.

[eXpat]

My point is that humanity will not stop until the last tree is cut and the last fish is caught with help of the last drops of petrol or last crumbs of coal. My point is that The Doom must come way before that if anyone or anything want to have any chance of survival.

Fully agree with that.

[mos6507]

If you want to discuss historical figures, another guy who makes interesting reading is Tesla. Not for the reasons most people evoke his name, though. I don't believe he knew anything about zero-point-energy. But he has some writings where he clearly "gets" resource depletion. That's one of the reasons he helped get hydro-power going. He realized fossil fuels weren't gonna last and that we needed to be on renewables of some kind. He would be branded as a technofixer today, but 100 years ago technofix was a much more plausible scenario than it is now.

[sparky]

.
that's the paradox of selfishness
some years back there was an outbreak of cholera in Naples ,
a limited number of vaccine doses were delivered , there was a riot and most of the vaccine doses were crushed in the rush ,the rest was stolen

as a public distribution system , it doesn't make much sense but for a poor man well aware that he would be at the bottom of the queue , that was his opportunity to get some
rather than the nephew of the local politician or the family of some doctor
selfishness is a very efficient distributive ,

collective action sound good but self interest is much better understood , that's why I don't believe at all in any management (rationing) scheme .

should oil be allocated on the basis of equal right world wide , past usage or ability to use overwhelming force ?

overwhelming force has the merit of being quite simple

[Sixstrings]

My point is that humanity will not stop until the last tree is cut and the last fish is caught with help of the last drops of petrol or last crumbs of coal. My point is that The Doom must come way before that if anyone or anything want to have any chance of survival.

Well put, I agree. I've always found this map interesting.. how many forests were in the continental US before European colonization:

Before:


After:


I've expressed some doubts on AGW specifics in the past, but.. changes this big, the loss of continental forests, surely affect climate somehow. Sad thing is that the Brazilian rainforest is getting hacked and burned as we speak, Brazil a rising and growing BRICS power and all that. Progress, I guess.

[TheDude]

1874, feh.

The earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers, the exalted of the earth languish. The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes and broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse consumes the earth; its people must bear their guilt. Therefore earth's inhabitants are burned up, and very few are left.

[Pretorian]

My point is that humanity will not stop until the last tree is cut and the last fish is caught with help of the last drops of petrol or last crumbs of coal. My point is that The Doom must come way before that if anyone or anything want to have any chance of survival.

Well put, I agree. I've always found this map interesting.. how many forests were in the continental US before European colonization:

Before:


After:


I've expressed some doubts on AGW specifics in the past, but.. changes this big, the loss of continental forests, surely affect climate somehow. Sad thing is that the Brazilian rainforest is getting hacked and burned as we speak, Brazil a rising and growing BRICS power and all that. Progress, I guess.

hey you missed the picture of today:

[Pretorian]

And that is WITH constant increase of oil, NG and coal production, along with betterment of technologies and other crap.

[mos6507]

And that is WITH constant increase of oil, NG and coal production, along with betterment of technologies and other crap.

And a lower population than today.

[eastbay]

And that is WITH constant increase of oil, NG and coal production, along with betterment of technologies and other crap.

Yes, and I just can't wait to see how treeless the world will become if yet another inexpensive and efficient source of energy is found. If not, which is where we're heading, the removal of all the planets trees won't take us very long anyhow. People will still burn them all as fuel or to clear land for ethanol crops and grazing.

The forests are gone either way. Humans are sterilizing the planet almost as quickly in geologic terms as a nearby massive supernova explosion would and there is absolutely nothing that can stop this fascinating event.

[Loki]

My point is that humanity will not stop until the last tree is cut and the last fish is caught with help of the last drops of petrol or last crumbs of coal. My point is that The Doom must come way before that if anyone or anything want to have any chance of survival.

Well put, I agree. I've always found this map interesting.. how many forests were in the continental US before European colonization:
|

Six, these are maps (rather outdated maps, actually) that show areas of "virgin forest." Not forest per se, but primary forests prior to any logging activity by European settlers. They are poor proxies for understanding the state of forests in North America today.

I'm not terribly worried about the sustainability of fiber harvest from US forests, though I do think all old-growth logging should be banned and more effective ecological protections instituted. Far more worrisome are bark beetles in the intermountain West, as well as Canada's rather rapacious forest management.

As for whether we'll log and burn all our forests in the US, I think that's unlikely. Unfortunately can't say the same about coal, oil, and NG. We will almost certainly mine and burn all our coal, oil, and NG, leading to out-of-control climate devastation. This will destroy our forests far more effectively than chainsaws ever could. Same end, different means.

I don't preach about this stuff in meat space, don't really see the point. We're not going to make a conscious choice as a society to change our wasteful ways, livin' large just feels too good.

The only way a climate catastrophe will be averted is if our economy utterly collapses and we just can't afford to mine and burn all the coal/NG/oil still in the ground. I'm hoping that happens sooner rather than later. Won't be nice for any of us, but it may prevent mass species extinction from accelerating.

[diemos]

Humans are sterilizing the planet almost as quickly in geologic terms as a nearby massive supernova explosion

I've always thought that one day, 100 million years from now, when the intelligent bee scientists are studying the geologic record they'll stop and say, "This can't be right. If you look at the data it seems that all the carbon on earth spontaneously jumped from the ground to the air at one point. How could that happen?"