fuel insted of food

[porkchop]

fuel instead of food i don't know. the price of food the way its going the poor getting poorer so the rich can do more miles. the morels of the modern world.

[Wombat]

There should be a "maybe"!

Nev

[Thomzo]

I voted yes. I know it all seems pretty doom and gloom at the moment but mankind has a way of surviving and nature is pretty resilient.

It will only take one enterprising Chinese person to realise that if they build solar panels into all their buildings, they could cut their reliance on the West's oil by 75%.

I predict that it will be a German engineer who will develop the first completely solar powered airplane and an Australian sailor who will think of putting sails back on cargo ships.

Don't get me wrong, I completely understand that the issues of Peak Oil and land grabbing for bio fuels are extremely serious but I have enough optimism to think that we will find a way around them. The more we talk about them, the more likely we are to find solutions.

Zoe

[ina]

Don't get me wrong, I completely understand that the issues of Peak Oil and land grabbing for bio fuels are extremely serious but I have enough optimism to think that we will find a way around them. The more we talk about them, the more likely we are to find solutions.

Zoe

That's the way to go - I haven't given up hope for mankind (and womankind) yet, either! OK, it'll be a push - but then, most of the world's population have been living a pretty hard life in the past, too...

[Mainer in Exile]

Bio-fuels are the wrong path, I think. We need the agricultural land to feed the growing population, not fuel vehicles. The only responsible bio fuels I know of are wood for heating and bio diesel made from used frying oil.

I've read a couple of articles about using steam engines, wood fired, to produce electricity for home use, and tapping the waste steam for heating. Tapping the waste steam is thought to make up for the poor efficiency of steam power.

The real hope I see for domestic use - lighting and personal transportation - is electricity from wind, solar, and geothermal sources. For flight, I don't know. People want to travel fast. Were that not so, zeppelins driven with solar powered electric motors would be a possibility. The zeppelin is big enough that, if covered with solar panels, it should be able to capture enough energy to power its engines and charge batteries to power the engines at night.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

I voted yes. I know it all seems pretty doom and gloom at the moment but mankind has a way of surviving and nature is pretty resilient.

It will only take one enterprising Chinese person to realise that if they build solar panels into all their buildings, they could cut their reliance on the West's oil by 75%.

I predict that it will be a German engineer who will develop the first completely solar powered airplane and an Australian sailor who will think of putting sails back on cargo ships.

Don't get me wrong, I completely understand that the issues of Peak Oil and land grabbing for bio fuels are extremely serious but I have enough optimism to think that we will find a way around them. The more we talk about them, the more likely we are to find solutions.

Zoe

Very well put! Actually, a German has already put a sail on a modern cargo vessel, so that's one done already.

Peak Oil: until five years ago (when I sobered up, took the money and ran) I worked in the oil industry. Whatever the petrol heads might like to believe, in some ways peak oil has already been passed. I mean in terms of that hydrocarbon that can be easily extracted. The paradigm has shifted: oil is increasingly difficult to find and extract, which is one reason why the price has risen so much.

Those who do have some relatively easily obtainable stuff (the Middle Eastern nations, in the main) are no longer strapped for cash flow and have no incentive to turn the taps more open, so it seems likely to me that oil will not again go below 70 bucks a barrel.

Which is a good thing; humans can be marvellously inventive when the pressure is on. With existing technology and with a little exercise we could halve our reliance on oil in a few months. The major stumbling block that I can see is getting those fat, idle, vitriolic, moronic, petrol-headed, slobs out of their cars and waddling down the street without having to pay them to do so. Not that they annoy me or anything

I'm voting "yes" - where there is life there is hope

[Martin]

I voted "no" - I don't think it's a case of "whether", but "when".............
There are so many horsemen of our apocalypse, all gathering speed -
gross overpopulation, global warming, ocean acidification, peak oil, overuse of coal, sea level rises, climate events...........etc, etc, etc
Can anyone blame the rapidly rising middle classes of China and India for wanting to share in what they view as our prosperity? They want TV, central heating, air conditioning, and a BMW.........but we need 5 planets for that!
Do I see technology "finding a way"? - unfortunately not - we may be able to mitigate the effects or slow it down a bit, but I fear the world and it's population is in for a hellishly tough time
About the only thing that could "save" the planet is if we're overtaken by another disaster first - great plagues may just do the trick.............
Sorry to be so cheerful ,but you did ask!

[MikeM]

mankind will survive, the question should be; how long will consumer society survive?

[justskint]

Society must make changes today, not next year, or the year after. To rely upon new technologies to replace carbon fuel is insanity; too little too late! As the poll indicates, 77% believe this to be the case, in all probability a widely held opinion with the population as a whole, and I apologise for saying; it’s the “Ostrich syndromeâ€

[ina]

Ah well, the question is open to all sorts of interpretations! I think there is hope for us - but what I'd call a pretty good way of surviving would probably mean total disaster and "no hope at all" for others...

[frozenthunderbolt]

sadly im with martin on this one

[oldfella]

I have voted no and may I say why. We talk now of Global warming, but I have often thought of the empty voids, left beneath our earths surface, as for a 100 years or so, mankind has been extracting billions of tons of material, for coal, oil, copper, iron, uranium, diamonds, etc leaving behind vast voids gradually filling with, methane gas in the coal mines and the natural gas in old oil wells, and I suspect, many other toxic things that I know nothing about. What happens when all this comes together?

We now talk about nuclear energy to be the way to combat our problems, and store the waste in the old mines, so now what happens when there is a seismic happening (as in England). This train of thought continues Ad Infinitum, so will finish now and go and bury my head in the sand with the majority of mankind

[ina]

We now talk about nuclear energy to be the way to combat our problems,

I don't - and from my point of view, anybody with a bit of sense doesn't, either!

[Annpan]

How on earth anyone can say nuclear is a solution when... it takes 100 years to de-commision a power station that only has a 25 year lifespan? No one is quite sure what to do with the waste? when it goes wrong, it REALLY goes wrong?

In my mind nuclear as bad as burning fossil fuels, if not worse.

Anyway... changing the subject a bit there...


I just can't bring myself to think that the human race will end any time soon, or that life on this planet will be come unbearable, and that life as we know it will cease to exist... I would never have had a child if I thought this.

I have to think that , although no doubt life will change, it will be for the better. E will have a world to grow up in... her generation may need to fix the mistakes of our ancestors but it is OUR duty to turn the tide right now.

The human race is a fantastic, resiliant race... we do need to clear up many political problems and stop the commercialisation of the world. No doubt there will be more wars over this but I believe peace will prevail and good will out. There are many good people in this world, striving for change... maybe... just maybe it will happen.

All that said, I don't think I have my head in the sand - I understand the problems we are facing, I am changing my family's life to fit around these problems. If and when the proverbial hits the fan, we will be safe and comfortable, I don't believe for one second that I will have to defend my land with the use of force, and I worry that some people do feel that way... what hope have we got if even those of us who are part of this 'movement' talk of violence, guns and every man for himself?... I despair.

[hamster]

I voted yes.

Back in 2004, 2005, 2006, lots of you were posting on this forum, while I was still faffing about buying flimsy acrylic jumpers and not mending them when they got holes in; eating nasty, intensively-reared chicken and eggs and imported vegetables in winter cos I liked courgettes and peppers better than cabbage and swede; flying from Newcastle to London cos it was cheaper than taking the train; and all the other things that I now sit here wringing my hands and saying the hoi polloi will never stop doing! Doubtless there were similar threads at that time saying people would never change, but I've somehow miraculously lifted my head out of the sand and gone from being one of the brainless sheep who probably caused environmentalists worldwide to despair for the future of humanity, to being passionately interested in local food, growing veg, seed-saving, keeping chickens and pigs, sustainability, making clothes, natural materials, alternative energy and transport....

I'm not some fantastically moral, selfless, altruistic person; I've just made a rational choice in the face of the evidence that this is the best way for me to ensure my survival and that of my family in the future, and there is no reason why other people can't see the facts in the same way and make the same choices. We say that people won't change until they have to (either through circumstances or legislation) but, well, we have... Are we significantly different, intellectually or emotionally, from the rest of the human race?

Allotment waiting lists (much to our chagrin) are at their longest virtually since the war. Ask any local food producer and they will tell you that there is a market for local, organic, sustainable food that simply did not exist 20 years ago. The chap in the cookware shop was telling me the other day that home baking is hugely popular among young people atm (thanks in part to the vile Nigella). I get emails from Freecycle of people taking and asking for garden bits, yarn, fabric, sewing machines, seeds, and even if people offer less green things, they're still not putting them in landfill. The River Cottage forum was overwhelmed with people who watched the Chicken Run programmes and signed up to the forum to say, 'Omg, I had no idea how it was produced, that's horrible, I don't want to support that, I'm switching to free range.' There are, what, 30-odd Transition Towns now in the UK? Heck, even BP have a renewable energy director!

We were having a very similar discussion at FOE last week, and people there said that when they started the group 20 years ago or so, the ideas they were discussing were considered very radical and subversive, but now they are mainstream and discussed everywhere. While we're still a long way off making the big, systemic changes we need to make, the explosion of interest in global warming and green issues in the last year or so is, I think, hugely positive. Rising food and fuel prices are going to push this onto the political agenda more urgently and more concretely in the very near future.

I know these are just baby steps, and we are probably too late to avoid climate catastrophe, we aren't going to make the big systemic changes in time - I have a far from rose-tinted view of the future and am realistic about the challenges we face. I can be pessimistic with the best of them at times!

But, fundamentally, I don't think people are amoral. Lazy, misinformed, selfish or thoughtless, maybe; but I don't think people weigh up the pros and cons and say, 'It is more important that I drive to work than that Bangladesh might end up underwater and people will die.' I think people just haven't made that connection yet, haven't been encouraged to make that connection.

But people can and do change. I did, and I'm sure I'm not alone on here.

We are a fantastically resourceful species - horrific as it is, just look at what we've done in the last 250 years! - but unfortunately we are genetically programmed to take advantage of it when life is easy and step up to the mark in a crisis. Sadly, I think we will have to get closer to a crisis before enough people make the connection between what they do every day and things that are happening to the planet to turn things around, but, yes, there is hope for us, because we are angry about it and we are doing something, and we aren't so very different from other people.