| The solution to the high price of gasoline |
| Tuesday, 05 August 2008 21:25 |
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The real problem isn’t refinery capacity; it’s in our way of life. A way of life that threatens not only the climate by global climate change, but also our very own existence. It’s also interesting to note that Mr Bush says Americans are “very dependent on oil”, but wants to solve the problem by building new refineries and drill for oil in “new environmentally friendly ways”. As if drilling and extracting oil is in any way environmentally friendly, and as if the new wells would last forever. All the possible drilling sites around the US combined couldn't supply the US for even 10 years. The consumer dream
It seems to me that America doesn’t have a plan. There’s no one working on the real dilemma. Unfortunately no other country seems to be taking the matter seriously either. Sweden is still on the track for ethanol, a fuel proven again and again to be unable to solve the peak oil crisis. Sweden’s railway system is also in poor shape, with frequent outages and congestions, utterly unable to cope with the increasing amount of goods sent by train, and the ever increasing demand for mass transit. Sweden holds little hope to be the saviour of the day. Resource depletion
The solution What we should be looking for is something completely different. Not a miracle technological solution, but a social solution based on a new way of life, a life that goes back to communities and revolves around true sustainability. Yes, there are many other key factors that as to be addressed to solve our problem. I have to concur with Dr A. Bartlett’s opinion that we should put a limit to the number of humans on this planet. Why should we not choose to put a limit on human population? It’s not like we can continue to proliferate forever anyway. At some point in time Earth's carrying capacity will put a halt to any population growth whether we like it or not, and population size will go downhill from there as the health of our planet continues to deteriorate and resources become ever more scarce. Isaac Asimov summed the problems with overpopulation up nicely in his "freedom of the bathroom" analogy. A population limit is not something that should be specific to China as it is today, as population in the western countries obviously also contribute to the devastation of the planet. It's time we ask ourselves the really simple, but oh so hard questions:
(2 Votes) |
In an interview with Yahoo! News President Bush says that the best way to solve the high price of gasoline is to “increase oil supply” and “build new refineries”.
Obviously the proposed solution can never be more than a quick fix. In reality the solution just lets us devastate more of the planet before waking up from this consumer dream and realizing we’re on the wrong track. Human problem solving usually cause more problems than were there in the first place.
We have been using more resources every year than the Earth can replenish for decades. How is that possible? Simple, by using more than is replenished the resource eventually runs out. This is easily seen in fishing grounds. There used to be blue finned tuna fish in Sweden just 100 years ago, and cud used to be 50 % lager than they are now. If you're lucky and find any cud at all. Even the research vessels have a really hard time finding any of them. Once gone, they never return, for where should they return from? Every fishing ground is already at peak fishing capacity or in decline, nearing collapse.