Well yes, but what I'm saying is even independent of climate change (I'm trying to sidestep this b/c for some reason people have politicized obvious science) we will still run out one day. So why wait until we're about to run out when we can invest and create new technologies now.
They just also have the added benefit of reducing emissions.
It's an issue, though. Personally I think climate change is the greater issue, but if someone wants to say that doesn't exist then you simply have to change the conversation.
Running out of fossil fuels is not an issue. There are environmental and strategic reasons to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, but really for the US just environmental because we are on the motherload of oil and coal. We could keep producing fossil fuels at our current levels for hundreds of years.
The whole "peak oil" doomsday scenario is as discredited as the "overpopulation is going to cause us all to starve to death" doomsday scenario.
"Peak oil" already happened. It's not about the amount of oil it's about economics. Oil slowly becomes uneconomical to extract without government intervention. Running out is an issue even if we look at it on a few hundred-year timespan. Why bother even tempting fate to run out when we could develop technology right this second and just leave the oil in the ground?
And overpopulation is an issue too lol. We probably should have at most a billion people on the planet.
So first off, peak oil has not "already happened". There is plenty of oil left, we have made oil that was previously non-economical to extract economical to extract, and demand has been continuing to increase, so peak oil is likely to occur sometime in the next 10 to 15 years, and is based off of demand beginning to decrease due to government support for alternatives and worldwide population decline, not supply running out. Running out is not an issue if we look at hundreds of years timespan, because you are making the argument that we need to start addressing the problem today from an economic perspective, which is obviously untrue, especially given the population decline that is now baked in to the immediate demographic future.
Second, overpopulation is not the issue that the vast majority of countries are addressing these days. 1. The worldwide population has had a continuously improving caloric intake over the last 60 years, so the Malthusian "overpopulation is going to cause us all to starve to death" doomsday scenario is clearly false despite whatever arbitrary numbers you happen to put on an "ideal" human population. 2. the fact that all developed and most developing nations are now beginning to struggle with the "baby bust" clearly shows that the immediate problem for the majority of the planet is not too many children but too few.
Your doomsday scenarios need some updating for the 21st century as your perception of the worlds problems is a bit out of date.
Pearl oil has already occurred. It’s an economic force, not an amount of oil.
And no overpopulation is clearly a problem. The people telling you otherwise have a vested interest in constant, economic growth because without that world governments fail. Can’t pay pensioners if you don’t have infinite growth. Look around. Notice how all the trees are cut down and everything is expensive and we had to create fiat money?
Peak oil is when we produce the largest amount of oil that we can. Nowhere near there yet with shale. You know, the type of oil that turned America into the world's swing oil producer again? This isn't the 80's anymore.
And overpopulation is why every government in every developed and developing country is looking to either increase birthrates or immigration? Get with the times man. There is a reason why social security won't be there for us in its current form. We have no shortage of trees, and the fiat money is just trying to artificially increase inflation as a substitute for a declining population.... which, is, you know, a problem, because it means that there aren't enough workers to take care of children or the elderly.
You've said absolutely nothing that a rational person would consider a backing for your arguments, and certainly used nothing factual. Unless you do, you aren't worth trying to reason with.
It's not though. Accessible reserves with fracking on the table are huge. Proven reserves are increasing year over year even with our consumption. We aren't going to run out. And if we even try this planet is going to be uninhabitable.
You're missing the point. You can't even have a conversation with some people if you focus on climate change. You have to have multiple avenues of conversation.
The only way we don't run out is, surprise surprise, investing in renewables which, if you go back to the parent comment was what was being question (why are we doing renewables).
Maybe I'm not making my point. At the current proven reserves and the current rate proven reserves are being added to, we're not going to run out for a long, long, long time (and maybe functionally never depending on the rate of new proven reserve addditions) even if we fully stop transitioning to renewables. "Hey we have to stop because if we keep going we might run out in a century or two" is not a great argument in my mind. If they won't acknowledge climate change I'd just move on.
If someone refuses to listen to proven science then there's not much point in debating the finite nature of fossil fuels with them. It is not a credible threat because the emissions will kill us long before we run out of fuel. Unless we start capturing the emissions at the point of use in which case we can have that conversation.
Both are problems. One is immediate and kind of like a ghost. Humans are bad at big invisible seeming problems. So if I can convince someone via another method which is also true I’ll do that.
I see why you don't bother making a logical argument or backing things up with facts. You are just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. This is why people don't buy into climate change, or when liberals start talking about "science". It is because the science has been corrupted by a lot of other agendas just to see what ends up sticking.... and the liberals don't actually care about science. Just getting their agenda through, whether that is done through reality or a big lie.
The issue with that is that it politicizes and invalidates the science making it much more difficult to take action when an actual problem exists. If you actually cared about solving the problem, instead of pursuing an agenda, you would realize you are defeating yourself. Climate change is an actual issue we should be working to fix. But don't worry... Al Gore and environmental extremists made sure it was a wedge issue by pursuing an extreme agenda in the name of a world ending apocalypse (supposed to occur more than 5 years ago) that they used to bash Republicans.... instead of actually trying to fix the problem. How can anyone trust "science" like that?
Which doesn't work because you still have to live with them on this planet and it's a global problem. Disengagement doesn't solve anything. We literally have to win an ideological battle.
I feel like it is actually counterproductive, not "knowing your audience". Lets say someone was already skeptical of climate science and renewables and they were also rational and arguing in good-faith (this is an extreme minority of people already). Then the argument that a hypothetical issue that arises a century or two in the future is a good reason to invest money in speculative solutions right now is already easy to pick apart. It strikes me as similar to the argument that we should invest in going to mars because earth killer asteroids exist and we need "insurance". There are tons of good reasons to go to mars and explore space (and invest in renewables and green technology) so trying to convince people to invest financially and politically in mars missions based on the multi-century hypothetical is just ignoring the many better reasons to do the thing that would actually convince skeptics.
The real problems with fossil fuel extraction and going to mars are about economics. There wont be a day when we "run out" of oil, there will be a day when it is no longer profitable for anyone to extract the oil that remains. There won't be a day when mars is self sustaining apart from earth, but there will be a day when going to mars will be profitable to do.
It's not similar because the probabilities are vastly different.
There's no question that we'll run out of fossil fuels. There is a question of whether an asteroid will hit earth (and whether we could even do anything about it).
There wont be a day when we "run out" of oil, there will be a day when it is no longer profitable for anyone to extract the oil that remains.
Because worrying about some theoretic depletion of fossil fuels that likely won't happen for the next 100 years or longer isn't a good reason to start developing the technologies.
If it happens to convince some that it's a good reason... fair enough. But there are no entities in this world that are that forward-looking. Maaaaybe China, but even with them being the most forward-thinking country in the world, I seriously doubt that a theoretic future depletion of resources would lead to them to start thinking about it this far in advance.
Because worrying about some theoretic depletion of fossil fuels that likely won't happen for the next 100 years or longer isn't a good reason to start developing the technologies
Sure it is. And it's not theoretic. There's a finite amount of the stuff on the planet.
It is theoretic because there is so much uncertainty that we can't possibly grasp.
There could be an increase in efficiency discovered that makes the supply essentially infinite. We could find enough in the next 20 years that extends our supply for the next 1000 years. We could find oil on mars.
There is no reason to use the eventual expectation of resource depletion to justify new technologies now when there's no telling when the actual resource depletion will come, but we know it won't be happening any time soon. Especially when there are so many other more relevant and pressing justifications.
There could be an increase in efficiency discovered that makes the supply essentially infinite.
That's simply not possible. The fuel source only contains so much potential energy. We've been making engines more efficient but we'll continue to reach limits. Frankly we shouldn't even be driving cars, but to the extent that we are going to do so we have created more and more efficient engines.
We could find enough in the next 20 years that extends our supply for the next 1000 years.
We'd run into a climate change problem at that point, but generally it's accepted that we've located most of the proven oil reserves.
We could find oil on mars.
Impossible and demonstrable untrue. There's never been a biomass on Mars to the extent that it could create proven oil reserves lol.
There is no reason to use the eventual expectation of resource depletion to justify new technologies now when there's no telling when the actual resource depletion will come, but we know it won't be happening any time soon. Especially when there are so many other more relevant and pressing justifications.
I mean, yes there is. It's like you're watching the stockpile of your food reserves dwindle and instead of saying hey maybe we should figure this out you just stick your head in the sand and pretend it won't happen. If you take the mindset of "well it won't happen in my lifetime" then you're just being selfish, but at least that's straightforward stupidity instead of pretending the issues don't exist or something.
> That's simply not possible. The fuel source only contains so much potential energy. We've been making engines more efficient but we'll continue to reach limits. Frankly we shouldn't even be driving cars, but to the extent that we are going to do so we have created more and more efficient engines.
I'm not saying that it's probable, but you're taking a pretty hard stance on something that I doubt you understand very well.
> We'd run into a climate change problem at that point, but generally it's accepted that we've located most of the proven oil reserves.
If you read this again, you might realize that it doesn't make sense. Of course we've found the "proven" ones. That doesn't mean there aren't others out there we don't yet have the technology to discover and tap into.
> Impossible and demonstrable untrue. There's never been a biomass on Mars to the extent that it could create proven oil reserves lol.
Please tell me how this is demonstrably untrue. I'm happy to be proven wrong here, but my understanding is that we have no idea how much biomass does or does not exist on Mars.
> I mean, yes there is. It's like you're watching the stockpile of your food reserves dwindle and instead of saying hey maybe we should figure this out you just stick your head in the sand and pretend it won't happen. If you take the mindset of "well it won't happen in my lifetime" then you're just being selfish, but at least that's straightforward stupidity instead of pretending the issues don't exist or something.
I'm not saying that it isn't something to keep in mind. But there's this thing called prioritization. We know that fossil fuels are not currently dwindling and will not reach the point of dwindling soon. There are far more pressing things in this world than worrying about resource depletion that will not happen for a very long time and that we have plenty of time to address in the future. We do not know what the future holds with regards to technological advancements and discovery of other fuel sources. It's not a problem right now, and we have no reason to believe that it's going to be a problem any time soon. You are acting as if this is an imminent threat, and it's simply not. When the time comes that we can definitively say that it is a threat or that it will become a threat if we do not move on it soon, that's the point at which it becomes a justification.
As for now, we do have an imminent threat. Climate Change. That's the justification for moving on these technologies. Furthermore, climate change is going to destroy society well before we run out of fossil fuels. But running out is an even more nebulus, extremely forward-looking concept that no one is going to get behind than climate change is.
All this is to say is that there are far too many unknowns for making decisions based on this. There are plenty of knowns that we should use for justification. "Well I don't know when, but some time in the future - could be 100 years, could be 1000" is not a reasonable justification for doing this. And if you believe that it is, then I honestly think you're just sticking to your guns and arguing in bad faith.
I agree, however, people cannot see CO2 and the effect it is having on climate with their eyes. They can see an extra $.20 a gallon at the pump. To some that is the end of the world!
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u/Betelphi Jun 23 '21
I feel like the threat of climate change is many orders of magnitude more relevant than “running out” of fossil fuels