Facing the Truth

[tama]

Facing the truth must begin with ourselves. The political fast class publicly just panders to the lies that we choose to believe and deceive ourselves with. Just let them, let the politicians do what they do, lie - we can stop believing and listening.

Facing the truth begins from the fact that energy consumption per capita peaked 1979, a fact which certainly is not unrelated to the fact of stagnation of purchasing power since the same date. It is very simple really, what we consume is energy in form of various consumables, and once the energy ceiling has been hit per capita, individual consumption cannot go higher - or can go higher only at the expense of others consuming less.

So, regardless of how much US consumers yell with capitals that "WAGES MUST RISE", their purchasing power of consumables cannot exceed natural limits, the energy ceiling of available net energy. With the exception of increasing the effectiveness of foreign policy of global piracy, of course, which the Bushistas and neocons allready tried with not so good results, leading to severe cracks in US global hegemony.

Now, the quarter century of undulating plateau of stagnant energy resources per capita seems to be coming to end and next phase of civilization is diminishing energy resources per capita. Not more but less consumption, especially per capita. Adaptation to era of growing scarcity and... collapse of system founded on continued growth with all kinds of imaginable and unimaginable social upheavals included.

Facing the truth is often hard but also liberating and empowering, the truth that adaptation to this reality can start only with each of us, that we cannot expect or demand others (such as lying political leaders and other talking heads on the telly) do the adaptation for us. Each of us is responsible, for themselves and of each other, and we have no other possibility than accept our responsibility of adaptation or perish. When reality hits we have no other possibility than to face the truth or perish.

[Liberal_in_LA]

1. True enough

[Tesha]

2. This really isn't true.

The Sun pours down on our planet far more energy than we presently capture
and if we invested NOW in all of the solar-driven renewables (wind, hydro,
photo-voltaic solar, and thermal solar), we'd have all the energy we need
for the for the foreseeable future.

Farther into the future, fusion power will work and become practical.
Another possibility is solar power captured in space and beamed to
earth as microwave energy.

The key is bridging the gap between our current oil- and coal-driven
economy and a renewable or fusion-driven economy. That's why starting
NOW is essential; if we wait too long, our only choice will be to burn
enormous amounts of CO2-intensive coal and that could have catastrophic
effects on our planet.

Tesha

[tama]

3. Big if and then some

Are you aware of what is happening NOW?

The growth maniacs just spout about more growth while getting deeper and deeper into debt (US one trillion last FY, two trillions this FY) to keep the top layer of banking system nominally functional - but no real increase in investments in alternative energy or fossile energy but decrease because of lack of... money.

Peak oil happened allready and "bridging the cap" isn't happening in any serious way. And no, even renewables even under best circumstances cannot create green capitalism, an economy of continuous sustainable growth - simply because laws of physics don't allow that.

[Tesha]

4. What "law of physics" won't allow that?

(I'm actually fairly familiar with most of the laws of classical
physics and quite a few of the new-fangled ones as well.)

Insolation on the surface of the Earth is about 1,000 Watts per
square meter; that's quite a lot of energy. So what "law of
physics" won't allow us to capture much more of that energy
than we are presently doing?

Tesha

[tama]

5. The one with vengeance :)

Second Law of thermodynamics. Which has a lot to say about (classical) systems dependent on exponentially growing complexity.

But you changed the question, to be exact entropy does not per se forbid civilization allocating still some more solar energy for it's energy sinks, for a while. It just forbids eternally increasing allocation. Which is fatal, sooner or later, on any system dependent on continuous growth.

As for capturing sun's energy, we have no technology to beat photosynthesis, which we don't really understand nor can do. But as a gardening species and natural beings we do have great innate potential to understand energy flows in ecosystems in which we participate and even how to increase their intensity and sustainability for our own benefit. Increasing biodiversity increases also our own well being. So why try to beat Mother Earth in her own game, when all is needed is that She does what she does best and us Humans as part of her, at her bosom, just add our own well timed jive to All Her Jazz so that the whole band playes along. And gives us all we need to live and sing happily.

[Tesha]

6. Actually, *WE* understand photosynthesis just fine even if you don't.

And if you want electricity, any of several technologies beat photosynthesis.
But you seem to be big into "woo-woo" pronouncements so I guess I'll
just get out of the way of your rant...

Tesha