The move to current sunshine ( including wind and other natural sources) of energy will occur whenever economics make it cheaper than the current version of coal and oil. The ‘will’ question is will we engage this process to our advantage by shifting the game of subsidies ( including military support of importing oil- a $300 billion a year game without the current wars)?

The opportunity is to make fossil fuel like salt- a cheap commodity we used to go to war over. Will the Henry Ford of clean personal transportation be American? Or more importantly, will he/she headquarter the company in the US? Cheap clean energy solves most of our foreign policy problems in the near term while increasing national security. It will also guarantee economic vitality and leadership for the next century, while being the right thing to do environmentally and set up the world to adapt to the climate changes already committed to.

This November, we will elect a Congress that will answer these questions. The results will be whether we adapt fast and avoid the kind of die back previous civilizations experienced, and the vast suffering related. Will we let those who are rich under the current model, but clearly don’t feel rich enough continue to keep their interests above the common good?

Each of the current candidates could be the leader to call for a national program for clean domestically created energy. McCain has been on the Global Warming wagon with Hillary for years. Getting all of them to commit to a thirty year federally funded program to produce the result ( not the technology- let the private sector fight for the federal prize money by producing the result however they might) will promise that the next Congress passes spending bills that will guarantee demand for reinvention of energy building and transportation sectors.

So go make it an issue this election. Make your local, state and national candidates commit to smart aggressive use of the government’s power as a consumer, as well as setting the rules for investment and energy.

your carbon footprint is insignificant- your vote matters

We aren’t. On the other hand, species evolve into others. Dinosaurs are now birds. Australopithecines led to us. We don’t know what we’ll become. Homo sapiens will become extinct, but I don’t think intelligent, future-imagining life on earth will go away entirely.

And civilizations do come and go. However, they don’t necessarily leave a civilization-less void behind — although we’ve only had a few thousand years of experience, so maybe the whole agriculturally-driven life we have built since the last Ice Age is merely an experiment that will fail too. But we don’t know what the next civilization might be, if there is one.

Smarter, perhaps?

Doc… this is inFORMation of the first order…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY

Perhaps it’s time for me to do a best of list on my blog?

So we’ve consumed 5-8% of reserves in about 100 years. OK. But someone should explain to him about exponential growth. Half of that was consumed in the last doubling period. Twice that will be consumed in the next doubling period. Which takes us to 33%. One more doubling period and we will have consumed 66%. At that point the end is in sight and price pressure is becoming a major spur to innovation. So what do you think the current doubling period is for oil consumption? 25 Years? 10? If that pessimistic, remember that China and India are coming on stream and their appetite for non-renewable resources is going to be prodigious.

I too like to think I’m an optimist and a realist. I try hard to follow Buckminster Fuller’s aggressive optimism which feels that there’s always a technological fix and that we’ve hardly even started. But the realist in me knows that my kids and their kids are going to have a fun time getting through the next 100 years of changes.

mine was through the roof on travel.
mary

I’d ask why should we be the same?

At no time in history, recorded or otherwise, have humans had the ability to so completely dominate their surroundings. Regional civilizations rose and fell at the whims of drought, plagues, famines, etc. We have the resilience to withstand most external civilization-ending circumstances now (barring cataclysmic asteroid impacts and the like). So why should we think our civilization will fail for the reasons that others did? It’s a matter of will at this point.