Last year the academic quarterly Daedalus published an article by Daniel Nocera of MIT in which he laid out a credible and alarming vision of this world’s future energy demands. He pointed out that in 2002 the whole world “burned energy at a rate of 13.3 TW [terawatts]” and he calculated that “if 9 billion people adopt the current standard of living for a US resident… the world would need an astronomical 102 TW of energy in 2050.” He also pointed out that “If everyone adopts Equatorial Guinea’s current living standards, we will need 30.4 TW by 2050.”

and the link:
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/868/1

Anthony sez: “Damn if that doesn’t sound a little bit like religious belief to me!”

I think it’s way beyond “a little bit”. There is now solid proof that the greens look at the Global Warming™ issue as part of their Religion of Environmentalism.

From a recent news report:

“Visitors to the Gaia Napa Valley Hotel and Spa won’t find the Gideon Bible in the nightstand drawer. Instead, on the bureau will be a copy of ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ former Vice President Al Gore’s book about global warming.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20670001&refer=us&sid=afIESX3LdgnQ

This may be true if humankind heads in the same direction that it is heading now and natural events play out in the forecaster’s calculated manner. But that rarely ever happens. Natural events and man’s response to them can’t be calculated 10 or 20 years in the future let alone 100 or 200.

A small change in some remote part of the world could cause big unforeseen changes. Either way.

I’m not sure of your age but I’m pretty sure I’ve got at least 30 on you, so some perspective is called for. When I was a punk in the 70’s it was widely accepted the world wouldn’t be able to feed future populations. I forget the exact figure and date certain that was used back then but we surpassed both some time ago. Back then, global cooling was going to mean the end of mankind with ice covering ¾ of the United States. But it never worked out that way because mankind and, more importantly, natural events just don’t move in a straight, predictable line.

What scares me today is that Global Warming™ (or Climate Change™, depending) is now big business to the tune of 300 billion (yes, with a ‘b’) a year from a few million just a number years ago. That 300 billion generates a lot of screaming and hyperbole from people who want to keep their jobs, their funding or pad their personal resume on the backs of others (telephone for Al Gore).

I take issue somewhat with the climate change analogy, simply because much of what the public hears that scientists say is the amplification of a few strident voices (surprise surprise). Most climate scientists do not predict cataclysmic events in the near future, but they aren’t so interesting to interview for documentaries. The general consensus as I understand it, somewhat more on the inside as a graduate student in environmental sciences, is that our actions will soon lead us to a tipping point that will lead to catastrophic effects in the next 100-200 years.

I think that if you surveyed a majority of the people opposed to most of the legislation aimed at encouraging a cleaner society you would find that most of them are actually for improving the environmental efficiency of our daily and industrial lives, but that it is the dogmatic “repent of your carbon or burn in a soon to be hell on earth” that repels them, especially since oftentimes the environmentalists projecting that attitude are harshly critical of more traditional religions.