Learning From China

[speedomansam]

ooh, i like this subject. i took AP envirnomental science at school and we talked about it a lot. although it was a year ago and i can't quite remember it all.. buthere's my two cents:

yes, we will run out of gas. guarenteed. peak oil has already been reached, or it will be reached very soon, and then it's a serious downhill curve. however, right now, it's just too expensive to research alternative technology like fuel cells and other types of fuel. When gas gets to be $70 dollars a barrel, these other technologies will become viable, economical options and will be heavily researched and developed. In the mean time, before these other techonologies become adequately implemented, massive problems/starvations will occur all around the world.

as fas as electricity goes, nuclear is by far the best option. there are tons of alternative energy sources, but they are all minimal, although further development will undoubtedly take place making them viable options once we run out of coal (but, the U.S. has adequate coal reserves for 150 years)

however, the real problem in the world is population growth. proud duck was right--developed countries like the U.S. and Europe have low growth rates. Much of Europe is negative and the U.S.s is aroud even (excluding immigrants). however, developing countries populations explode, and it takes about 100 years for growth to slow and for the population to get out of their poverty so they don't feel a need to have big families to work the farm.

ultimately, we can't stop this population growth until it reaches about 20 billion, and then the world cannot support itself sustainably. massive starvations/wars/famines will occur even if there isn't some disaster like global warming.

the more educated i get about this stuff (and from this frazzled post it probably seems I'm not very, but I've actually read quite a lot. it's just been a while), the more I'm convinced ther's ulitmately nothing we can do. that's why it's a good thing the second coming is near. all you optimists, i'm aware of all the technologies that haven't been developed yet that could potentially save us all, but that's not likely. especially with the agenda of today's world.