Peak Oil News and Message Boards

perdition79 wrote: And why are their stomachs so large if they're not eating? Something suspicious there...

Good lord. The distended stomach is due to ascites. A starving person's blood protein ( mainly albumin) levels are so low from malnutrition that the osmotic pressure falls and fluid leaks out of the blood stream into the intraperitoneal cavity.

perdition79 wrote:The best solution would be to cut all humanitarian aid. Period.

Exactly. What happens when one mitigates the impact of population overshoot? More overshoot! Which means that whatever misery exists today will be multiplied in the future.

MonteQuest wrote:

perdition79 wrote: And why are their stomachs so large if they're not eating? Something suspicious there...

Good lord.

And How!!

Could've done without the full scientific explanation though.

MonteQuest wrote:

perdition79 wrote: And why are their stomachs so large if they're not eating? Something suspicious there...

Good lord. The distended stomach is due to ascites. A starving person's blood protein ( mainly albumin) levels are so low from malnutrition that the osmotic pressure falls and fluid leaks out of the blood stream into the intraperitoneal cavity.

Apparently my sense of humor doesn't translate well over the internet without a [/sarcasm] tag.

Jack wrote:

perdition79 wrote:The best solution would be to cut all humanitarian aid. Period.

Exactly. What happens when one mitigates the impact of population overshoot? More overshoot! Which means that whatever misery exists today will be multiplied in the future.

I don't agree. I think the best solution would be to help those peoples learn to live within the ecological limits of their areas by teaching them sustainable farming practices, by empowering women, and by providing on-demand birth control.

Cutting food aid would be the easiest solution, but not the best, in my opinion. Unless by "best" you mean "kills the most fastest."

But those starving folks aren't the problem, we First Worlders are the problem, as far as resources. Everyone is always so hot to kill off the poor, when it is those living as we do who are the problem. The US, with about 5% of the world's population, uses about 25% of the world's resources. If you want to kill off resource hogs, kill off Americans, starting with Texans, who are the biggest resource hogs on the planet.

Now if your desire to kill off a large chunk of the population is because of some esthetic ideal and not because of resource depletion, then I guess you can kill off whomever you find most objectionable.

Jenab's tangent on "saving the best human's" was moved to Open Discussion.

Jenab6 wrote:So what "forced" the small farmer off his land?

Dude!

the answer is obvious!
SUPERMARKETS and WALLY MARTS and TOO MUCH FOOD produced by other countires at 25 cents an hour wages!
NAFTA! BILLY THE CLINT AND RONALD THE RAYGUN all wanted NAFTA and it killed us.


YES TOO MUCH FOOD! there is tons and tons extra food and it driving our farmers out of business.

then when oil goes sky high se will have a shortage and the third worlders wont produce and we SHALL STARVE.
literally.
We have to become isolationist now
or we will become isolationist later due to incomprehensible oil prices.
one way or nother we are going back to isolationism

if we tax everything 300 percent many millions will survive.
otherwise were doomed.

The year of Nafta passage the farmers dropped like flies in our area and giant co-op ag companies bought lands and lands and lands. then they grew junk GMO and nothing was left for us here.

There is a way of generating a lot of energy energy that is self sustainable, fairly easy to produce and does not produce much net CO2. This is biomass. One acre of land can produce 20 tonnes of dried Elephant Grass. Each tonne yields 1.67 MWh so one acre yields 33.4MWh. By planting 700,000 acres of this stuff (approx 1050 sq miles) you can produce 23.38TWh of clean power. The UK currently consumes 350TWh per year (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4645452.stm) so Elephant grass on it's own could provide 7% of total UK energy needs within 3-4 years. Add to that the extra biomass from the leftovers of regular crops and we could be maybe providing 15%-20% total power just from this source. When you bring in wind + wave + solar + nuclear energy there should be enough power to go around. No doubt social changes would be needed (for the better) but we won't all be dying off.

The only reason why we aren't moving ahead with this fairly simple technology is power games, vested interests and inertia.

Cabrone wrote:By planting 700,000 acres of this stuff (approx 1050 sq miles) you can produce 23.38TWh of clean power.

Do we have 700,000 acres of spare land that we aren't using for anything else?

Do we have 700,000 acres of spare land that we aren't using for anything else?

I believe we do. 700,000 acres is approx 30 miles by 35 miles, roughly 1/3 the size of Norfolk. Obviously the elephant grass would be grown around the country so that it is close to the incinerators and each incinerator could be supplied by tens\hundreds of farms\smallholdings. This crop is tough, can be grown for 30 years without any fertilizers or pesticides and actually makes the soil more fertile by when it is grown. It can be grown in quite a variety of conditions so maybe land that is not deemed good enough for growing food could be used. Why not grow some on spare land in towns and cities? These are the sort of questions we have to ask ourselves as we rethink how we live our lives and structure our societies.

I read recently that Europe is looking to produce 9% of it's electricity from Biomass. It could be done within 5-10 years if the people incharge wanted it, it's only vested interestes that are slowing all the renewable technologies down. Politicians and energy companies seem to rate profits higher than society.

Sorry, forgot to include this link about research done by the University Of Illinois.

http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/ener ... x_gig.html

William Buffet donating 85% of his wealth to the Gates foundation to fight world poverty and disease. WE are talking close to $ 100 billion dollars combined wealth being directed on fighting poverty, hunger and disease in developing countries in the next decades.

Will this lift some countries out of the cycle of poverty and stabilize their population or just exhasperate and allow for exponential hell?

Solutions to Peak oil?

Cities and towns (re) built around walking, cycling, sport, mass transit, communities and people not big box industry and cars, with plenty of green, growing food and making products locally.

Move more freight to water and (electric) rail, plan around this, especially in transit countries.

Smaller electric cars with some plug in hybrids, electric vans and light trucks. Needed for rural areas especially.

Nuclear power in some countries, plenty of wind, solar, tides and biomas and some coal with carbon buried underground.

HS rail to replace certain short haul flights.

Carbon trading (Personal and industry).

Population control in some countries and immigration control in others to prevent too much draw down of local resources.

Move to sustainable farming practices.

Force supermarkets to sell ‘ugly fruit and veg’ (lower price) and stock a certain amount of green products and give tax incentives to reduce food miles.

Distributed energy production, especially from small industry and local authorities.

Mandatory fitting of mini wind turbines to all new homes, fitting of at least double glazing and new building regulations to cut down heat loss.


FACT: The world will never power down to manure powered ‘utopia’

FACT: We must do something as soon as possible, not just for energy security, but world peace and climate change.

Best PO model: Switzerland, France, Sweden
Middle: Brazil, Germany, Spain
Worst PO model: United states, China

That’s all I’ve got to add. .

Well, if it's a FACT that the world will not powerdown, why even bother "doing something?" How can you counter a FACT?

Well I said that the world wouldn't power down to agricultural levels, nor do I think there's a need to. Under no conceivable scenarios would millions of people throw years of education away, remain within walking distance of where they were born and go and shovel horse shit. Its pointless putting forward such a proposition and even more pointless enforcing it.

Governments have enough problems trying to get people to leave their cars at home let alone turn to hard labour and subsistence living.

I'd like to go a lot further than some of the points I've put forward, but it's just not realistic, and after all the post was about 'acceptable' solutions. In fact I think you’d have enough problems controlling population and immigration, let alone upsetting wal-mart by enforcing certain standards. Everyone wants their cake and eat it, but the idea was to put forward something the average person could look at and go ‘Yep that sounds okay;!’. Moreover it’s technologically and financially feasible over the next 30 years it just takes political will.

Wildwell wrote:Well I said that the world wouldn't power down to agricultural levels, nor do I think there's a need to. Under no conceivable scenarios would millions of people throw years of education away, remain within walking distance of where they were born and go and shovel horse shit. Its pointless putting forward such a proposition and even more pointless enforcing it.

Governments have enough problems trying to get people to leave their cars at home let alone turn to hard labour and subsistence living.

Well, I can see that few even have an inkling of what a powerdown entails. Yes, I see a move away from machines and toward more manual labor, but hard labor and subsistence living?

Hardly.

Why is it that so many people haven't a clue as to what powerdown means?

Where does this mindset come from?

Powerdown in many cases will mean giving up speed of acquisition in return for quality.

MonteQuest wrote:Why is it that so many people haven't a clue as to what powerdown means?

Where does this mindset come from?

Powerdown in many cases will mean giving up speed of acquisition in return for quality.

It is not irrational to be convinced that your concept of powerdown is no more achievable than fusion generators. I do honestly hope that it is possible, but I am no where near convinced that it is. In addition, I am very convinced that the forces in play that actually make these decisions have chosen to pursue an entirely different path.

rwwff wrote:

MonteQuest wrote:Why is it that so many people haven't a clue as to what powerdown means?

Where does this mindset come from?

Powerdown in many cases will mean giving up speed of acquisition in return for quality.

It is not irrational to be convinced that your concept of powerdown is no more achievable than fusion generators.

And just what do you think that concept is?

MonteQuest wrote:

It is not irrational to be convinced that your concept of powerdown is no more achievable than fusion generators.

And just what do you think that concept is?

Hard to say really. I think I have a fairly pathetic and feeble understanding of what it is you envision, but I think it includes elements of:

1.) reduced population.
2.) sustained technology, but with much less mass industrial production.
3.) more localization of skills and products
4.) emphasis on renewable energy sources
5.) current economic model has to die, new model based on quality instead of quantity.

I'm sure you'll say I'm all wrong, but I have done my best to understand your proposal; perhaps it is simply beyond the capacity of my limited intelligence and education to truly comprehend.

But I have a fine rule that has served me well. If you don't fully understand it, don't sign it, and don't vote for it.

rwwff wrote: Hard to say really. I think I have a fairly pathetic and feeble understanding of what it is you envision, but I think it includes elements of:

1.) reduced population.
2.) sustained technology, but with much less mass industrial production.
3.) more localization of skills and products
4.) emphasis on renewable energy sources
5.) current economic model has to die, new model based on quality instead of quantity.

I'm sure you'll say I'm all wrong, but I have done my best to understand your proposal; perhaps it is simply beyond the capacity of my limited intelligence and education to truly comprehend.

But I have a fine rule that has served me well. If you don't fully understand it, don't sign it, and don't vote for it.

No, not wrong. But why does a move towards these concepts give rise to the visions of poverty, hard labor, and strife that we see trotted out?