tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.comments2024-02-20T13:32:06.704-05:00Resource InsightsKurt Cobbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330759091950742285noreply@blogger.comBlogger3418125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-85239886621499432032024-02-20T13:32:06.704-05:002024-02-20T13:32:06.704-05:00Hi Kurt,
I sent an e-mail a few days ago inquirin...Hi Kurt,<br /><br />I sent an e-mail a few days ago inquiring if you would like to participate in a peak oil chat. I was wondering if you might be interested. Here is the link to the latest chat:<br /><br />https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKu802QsmCI&tAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-4239682727667811742024-02-04T13:44:45.266-05:002024-02-04T13:44:45.266-05:00Тому дуже скоро ми побачимо величезну бійню на Бли...Тому дуже скоро ми побачимо величезну бійню на Близькому Сході...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-60528205104097630142024-01-29T02:43:19.476-05:002024-01-29T02:43:19.476-05:00Відчуваю, що скоро буде дуже весело на Близькому С...Відчуваю, що скоро буде дуже весело на Близькому Сході, а отже і велика війна незабаром.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-12354814335385220882024-01-18T10:59:07.534-05:002024-01-18T10:59:07.534-05:00To Anonymous:
We humans have been able to live on...To Anonymous:<br /><br />We humans have been able to live on earth for millennia without destroying it. It is a small handful of misguided miscreants today -- mainly the leaders of the 'developed world' -- who are destroying it.SomeoneInAsianoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-15419986284567405532024-01-15T09:09:35.764-05:002024-01-15T09:09:35.764-05:00I wonder if humans will ever learn how to live on ...I wonder if humans will ever learn how to live on the earth without destroying it..Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-54022772257000878092024-01-08T17:28:23.385-05:002024-01-08T17:28:23.385-05:00Kurt, I also have a sentimental love of paper book...Kurt, I also have a sentimental love of paper books (though the Kindle is getting to be a more common reading source). The problem is that all media are fugitive, and each new media iteration loses a big chunk of information. And the lifecycle of new media methods appear to be getting shorter. <br /><br />Acid free paper books might last awhile, but chemical film, magnetic tape, CDs, DVDs, and BDs are all increasingly fugitive media. It's an entropy problem, IMO. And what will the cloud do if a bad solar storm like the Carrington event zaps the global grid? <br /><br />Thanks for your blog writing, Kurt. I enjoy your posts.<br /><br />BigDoug1053https://www.blogger.com/profile/02647797794300627470noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-9116528680179075902024-01-07T10:48:52.574-05:002024-01-07T10:48:52.574-05:00While I fully acknowledge the value of the printed...While I fully acknowledge the value of the printed word on paper, I'm apt to wonder how many of us -- or should we say how many of <i>those of us left</i> -- will likewise acknowledge its value once modern industrial 'civilization' crumbles beneath the weight of its own folly. The vast majority of us -- or rather those of us left -- will be so preoccupied with keeping ourselves and our loved ones alive that probably all of our time will be taken up with 'mundane' concerns like putting food on the table. Few of us, I suspect, will have any leisure, energy or inclination left to peruse a novel running to several hundred pages. Most books may in due course come to be viewed as useless relics of the past. Maybe some of us will see fit to preserve what we consider to be the more 'canonical' texts of our respective cultures. But even then how many of us will want to or be able to read them, especially after a few generations? How many of us today still care about the Egyptian <i>Book of the Dead,</i> well-preserved though it was? (I've also read that most printed books today use a form of paper which might not last more than a few centuries.)<br /><br />Books on <i>science</i> in particular may all become useless. Most books on applied science will be useless because there'll be no more of the hardware and materials left for employing the science. Books on theoretical science will be viewed the same way Paracelsus' works are viewed today -- as so much incomprehensible mumbo-jumbo.<br /><br />In the 2004 film <i>The Day After Tomorrow,</i> the protagonists are forced to use an entire library of books as fuel in order to keep warm and survive a super cold snap. A bit of food for thought there.SomeoneInAsianoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-19957592549681869112023-12-21T15:12:21.885-05:002023-12-21T15:12:21.885-05:00I have, as the saying goes, no dog in the fight. B...I have, as the saying goes, no dog in the fight. But I will posit that this is an excessively pessimistic view. An anecdote about an injured pedestrian, a bad as that is for the pedestrian, is hardly dispositive with respect to the viability of fully autonomous vehicles. One could pull any desired number of incidents in which vehicles driven by humans have run over pedestrians, driven into crowds, or any particular screw-up you might care to mention.<br /><br />There's no question that autonomous vehicles are not ready for prime time, but their situation is not analogous to the adoption of fuel cell powered vehicles (for which there still may wind up being limited use cases).<br /><br />With all aspects of AI, including autonomous vehicles, chat bots, etc., when talking to the people in my business, I say that these developments are at the same stage relevant to their ultimate potential as the Wright Flyer was in 1903.<br /><br />Finally, it's a low blow to paint Uber drivers with the broad brush of "economically illiterate." The ones with whom I've ridden and discussed this have been acutely aware of the economic considerations that affect their choice to provide this service. This is NOT to say that I think that Uber is not engaged in exploitation, but only to say that the drivers with whom I discussed it acknowledge this aspect of the enterprise and their economic circumstances and have tallied the plusses and minuses and drive for Uber with eyes wide open.King of the Roadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06841601144107400103noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-15185979003029543482023-12-18T14:41:44.685-05:002023-12-18T14:41:44.685-05:00You are brilliant at identifying the key issues an...You are brilliant at identifying the key issues and explaining them succinctly, Kurt. Thanks for this post (as for many others) which has helped clarify my thinking on the subject of the false promises of new technologies.<br /><br />As for the great novels the tech-bros could/should be reading, Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr would be an excellent place to start. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-78354949111576786762023-12-17T16:14:26.335-05:002023-12-17T16:14:26.335-05:00I think there will always be a masculine tendency ...I think there will always be a masculine tendency for technology devotees to lock onto various savior technologies and promote them with a kind of earnest, religious fervor. Even when one technology quietly disappears others noisily rise in their wake. Who remembers cold fusion?<br /><br />Citizens who have little science education – and this is the majority – will readily believe in magic, and I really can't blame them for either wanting magical solutions to the human predicament or naively falling for them one-by-one. <br /><br />The hard sellers of autonomous cars were not the developers. It was all those devotees out there who instantly shared the dream and believed the feigned sale pitch that autonomous cars will result in less traffic congestion and improved safety – when all along the singular purpose of the industry was just trying to eliminate the employment of drivers.Chris Harrieshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02370032392696620448noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-60644144032359151442023-12-10T11:41:56.503-05:002023-12-10T11:41:56.503-05:00Hi Kurt (and everyone),
Here's a link to a tal...Hi Kurt (and everyone),<br />Here's a link to a talk hosted by Chris Martenson that I've just watched:<br /><br />https://rumble.com/v3ymnwg-simon-michaux-debunking-green-myths.html<br /><br />It's quite a long talk, but worth watching. His guest is Simon Michaux, Professional Qualifications as stated by himself:<br />Associate Professor at Geological Survey of Finland/Geologian Tutkimuskeskus<br />Circular Economy Solutions Unit KTR<br />Bach. App Sc (physics & geology)<br />PhD. Mining Eng.<br />He's proposing to use liquid fuel fission with thorium as a fuel and states that there is only low level radioactive waste which is rather easy and safe to handle. Could this be a silver lining ? It sounds too good to be true, but I'm no expert. I certainly still think, that our economy has to and will contract, but so does Mr. Michaux, and he has ideas how to build a sustainable future and wants to put them to work. I'm certainly interested to hear your opinion on it if you can find the time to watch it.<br /> For anyone interested, here's his website:<br /><br />https://www.simonmichaux.com/<br /><br />greetings<br />Frank<br /><br /><br />Frank from Germanynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-50021256174716865402023-12-10T10:07:20.089-05:002023-12-10T10:07:20.089-05:00Any fusion era would be brief if humans decide to ...Any fusion era would be brief if humans decide to keep increasing energy dissipation at 2.3% per year. Waste heat Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-30919438058018837762023-12-05T22:20:27.488-05:002023-12-05T22:20:27.488-05:00As always, Kurt Cobb is relevant!As always, Kurt Cobb is relevant!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-86402256500980272642023-12-03T22:31:54.823-05:002023-12-03T22:31:54.823-05:00In what year will the US stop building natural gas...In what year will the US stop building natural gas power plants?Ken Barrowsnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-91073699754552660402023-11-26T17:42:27.486-05:002023-11-26T17:42:27.486-05:00Google translate provide the following translation...Google translate provide the following translation for the second comment:<br /><br />Clean energy from the source (gross - spent on extraction) goes to the extraction of minerals, cleaning, concentration, melting, embodiment in a product, transportation at all stages, installation and "connection", maintenance, basal functioning, etc.<br /><br />Concentrated fossil fuel energy is dissipated in the process of all stages. What clean energy can be obtained from such an energy-creating device without subsidies and subsidies?<br />This was clearly indicated by G. Odum. This is a utopia.Kurt Cobbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05330759091950742285noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-33315342977067461162023-11-26T17:40:38.445-05:002023-11-26T17:40:38.445-05:00Google translate provides the following translatio...Google translate provides the following translation for the first comment:<br /><br />War is inevitable.Kurt Cobbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05330759091950742285noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-56214076664646629522023-11-26T17:38:54.094-05:002023-11-26T17:38:54.094-05:00Google translate provides the following translatio...Google translate provides the following translation for the first comment:<br /><br />It is necessary to destroy the entire physical infrastructure and technologies for the production of modern weapons.Kurt Cobbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05330759091950742285noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-11077730321720446762023-11-23T07:57:04.453-05:002023-11-23T07:57:04.453-05:00QUOTE: ***Is the human project worth saving?... On...QUOTE: ***Is the human project worth saving?... On current form one would expect that the answer is no. But in order to change the answer to yes, the "yes" forces would have to proffer some very compelling arguments... I can imagine arguments that include reference to the literary, musical, architectural, artistic, philosophical and scientific achievements of humans...***<br /><br />My strong suspicion is that here again the usual tribalism that has characterized our kind from day one will rear its ugly head: only <i>certain parts of</i> the human project will be worth saving. Homer? Shakespeare? Beethoven? Leonardo? Oh, but of course! Du Fu? Tsao Hsueh-Chin? Rumi? Lady Murasaki? Forget it. (Not that we Chinese won't be guilty of the same.)<br /><br />I'm reminded of all those so-called anthologies of <i>WORLD</i> (ha!) literature, between the covers of which one finds not a single non-Western literary work being listed. Or books on <i>WORLD</i> mythology which devote umpteen pages to the Greeks (who else) but only a couple miserable paragraphs to, say, the Australian aborigines. I'll be frank about it: it is things like these that tempt me to think that perhaps the human project's not really worth saving, after all. Certainly all the literary, artistic etc achievements offer scant compensation for all the damage our species (or certain members of our species, rather) has inflicted on the biosphere -- if the said achievements have not actually <i>abetted</i> this damage!SomeoneInAsianoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-2672335048779526932023-11-22T18:29:40.810-05:002023-11-22T18:29:40.810-05:00There's a business book entitled "What Go...There's a business book entitled "What Got You Here Won't Get You There." That phrase applies to us as a race. Those characteristics that enabled a slow, weak species whose newborns took many years to be self-sustaining to survive and, for the moment, thrive, are not the characteristics required to help us survive as a species. We are tribal, acquisitive, and sexual and that got us here.<br /><br />As to the chemical companies and pesticides, it's not reasonable to expect anything different. Their executives and shareholders are inherently tribal and acquisitive. And, in fact, they are giving us what we want.King of the Roadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06841601144107400103noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-37160495764876605512023-11-20T20:15:34.003-05:002023-11-20T20:15:34.003-05:00Just picked up a well-recommended book, The World ...Just picked up a well-recommended book, The World in a Grain, with subtile of The Story of Sand and How It Transofmred Civilization. Author is Vince Beiser. I'm usually reading a couple of books at a time, so I haven't opened it up yet. <br />As a side note, my first book is coming out in January, from an indie publishing house here in Washington State. Title is CLIMATE DRAGON, in the genre of climate fiction.S. W. Lawrencehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01654864579983316386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-74661010466150030982023-11-19T12:21:52.497-05:002023-11-19T12:21:52.497-05:00Technology may try to solve this under the princip...Technology may try to solve this under the principle that it just takes one Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-59107650066042667772023-11-19T11:35:32.127-05:002023-11-19T11:35:32.127-05:00My guess is that sperm counts are tested from popu...My guess is that sperm counts are tested from populations of modern urbanites who get most of their pesticide load from industrial agriculture. Since there are still large numbers of people, mostly in the Global South, getting their food from subsistence organic horticulture, humanity is in no risk of extinction from lack of babies.<br /><br />Indeed, lack of babies is just what the earth needs. If the total fertility rate goes to almost zero, human population numbers might get back to below carrying capacity by the end of the century. And rapid population reduction would surely destroy the global market economy and induce the mother of all economic depressions. I think falling sperm counts are a win-win. Let's hope they go to zero almost everywhere.Joe Clarksonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-48251598790947915132023-11-01T11:49:43.469-04:002023-11-01T11:49:43.469-04:00Converting from fuel based generation to technolog...Converting from fuel based generation to technology based generation (solar and wind) reduces global primary energy supply needs by 75%. We don't need to replace the 65% lost to the waste heat of combustion nor the 10% spent on perpetual extract, refine, transport.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-4076694720636662162023-10-29T14:35:46.937-04:002023-10-29T14:35:46.937-04:00It's so sad that it's gotten to this point...It's so sad that it's gotten to this point, but the best thing to happen would be a synthetic virus that wiped out 90% of the world's population. 7.2 billion people would die now to save a habitable planet for about 40 trillion people yet to live during the next 4 million years of humanity's life on earth.Joehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01251330546889158364noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-55818881324660100242023-10-29T11:08:29.612-04:002023-10-29T11:08:29.612-04:00Потрібно Знищити всю фізичну інфраструктуру і техн...Потрібно Знищити всю фізичну інфраструктуру і технології виробництва сучасної зброї.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com