[ExI] Why do political and economic leaders deny Peak Oil and Climate Change?

[John Clark]

On Fri, Sep 6, 2013  Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:

> In order to begin solving a problem you must first realize that you have
> a problem.
>

Yes, and looking at the figures for natural gas production in the USA it
sure doesn't look like running out of fossil fuels is going to be much of a
problem in the immediate future:

http://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/n9070us2m.htm

The huge expansion of domestic oil and gas production in the USA has
created about 1.2 million jobs and increase disposable income by almost
$2000 per household per year. And new technology, that is to say fracking,
has INCREASED the usable gas reserves by 58% over what it was in 1997! Of
course environmentalists are very unhappy about all this, but then they
never saw a large scale power source they didn't hate.

And by the way, in the current New Scientist magazine it says that there is
twice as much energy in methane hydrate than all the world's oil and coal
and natural gas and oil shale and tar sands combined. It also calls this
unused resource the cleanest fossil fuel in the world.

> The Nile is not just a river in Egypt.
>

Speaking of the Nile, Ethiopia is building a new dam on the Nile, it is
expected to be completed by 2017 and will produce  6000 Megawatts of
greenhouse gas free energy that the environmentalists say they are so
worried about. The Aswan High Dam has been producing 2100 Megawatts since
1970 and just a few days ago Uganda anounced they were going to build a 600
Megawatt damn. Of course environmentalists are very unhappy about all this,
but then they never saw a large scale power source they didn't hate.


> > alternative energy sources (too little, too late) don't produce
> hydrocarbon gases
>

Alternative energy also tends not to produce usable amounts of energy
either, and often for the same reason. Very very small demonstration
projects are OK but as soon as anybody tries to ramp it up to usable levels
environmentalists put a stop to it; solar cells take up too much land,
geothermal causes earthquakes, wind turbines are noisy, disrupt wind
patterns and kill birds. And I know from first hand experience that the
mere mention of the word "nuclear" causes some to explode in mindless
apoplectic rage.

Environmentalists would have no problem with attaching one generator to one
hummingbird, but if anybody wanted to actually make a real dent in the
problem and found a way to connect 10^15  hummingbirds to a huge turbine
environmentalists would scream bloody murder and organize protest
demonstrations in the streets.


> > The point is that we've missed the boat, and we're in for a world of
> hurt.
>

And what a poor morality play it will be if that turns out to be untrue.
The unholy must be punished for their profligate lifestyle, like people in
China insisting on 3 meals a day and indoor plumbing.


> > Billions of people can barely afford their next meal. Quadruple the food
> prices. What happens?
>

What happens when food gets expensive? People starve. And what causes food
to become expensive? Self righteous environmentalists, who claim to have
taken the high ground on all moral issues, diverting resources away from
food production and toward bio fuels.

> You're not solving the problem. You're being a part of the problem.
>

Eugen, another part of solving a problem is making sure the cure isn't
worse than the disease. Even if the current temperature of the earth is the
perfect temperature to maximize human happiness, would reducing the
increase by a fraction of a degree be worth millions dying from energy
starvation?

  John K Clark
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