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Re: Losing an arm or leg, friend or foe? Posted by TML [Email]  (#2212)  [Profile/Gallery]
(more from TML) on Sat, 30 Apr 2011 05:06:04
In Reply to: Losing an arm or leg, friend or foe?, Reality, Sat, 30 Apr 2011 01:30:39 Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup |
You've got a logical fallacy, a non sequitur, and a simple case of ignoring evidence in your argument. You assert that we won't run out of gas, that we'll stop using it when we find something cheaper. Your "evidence" for this bold assertion is simply listing analogies from the past. Comparing the usage of gasoline to the usage of whale oil is, at best, absurd. It ignores the effects of exponential population growth and exponential energy demand (products of the industrial revolution), factors not present in your examples. Just because we found alternative energy sources to the ones you listed before exhausting the supply IN NO WAY implies that this is some kind of universal law, and that it will always happen that way. We were also never as dependent on those other energy sources you listed as we are on oil today. If you look at the rate of increase in consumption vs the rate of decline in new oil field finds, then you will see there is a very finite amount of time we have left on oil. Stating that we will switch to a cheaper energy source before the oil becomes scarce enough to become so expensive as to wreak havoc on our society is baseless, and it flies in the face of the actual evidence we do have; current usage, rate of increase of usage, estimated oil reserves. Yes, previous estimates of oil reserves have been proven to be inaccurate. The thing about science is that we gather more data, revise our theories and estimates so that they better fit reality. There's every reason to think that our current estimates of oil reserves are far more accurate than the estimates of 50 years ago. We can't know for sure if we're going to find something better and cheaper (and implement its widespread use) before we run into big problems. The only thing we know for sure is that we improve our chances by extending the amount of time we have to find the solution, and we do that by reducing our use of oil.
posted by 99.248.17...
, Sat, 30 Apr 2011 23:53:55, Sat, 30 Apr 2011 15:11:07, Sat, 30 Apr 2011 05:06:04 <-- Viewing This Message, Sat, 30 Apr 2011 13:34:41, Sat, 30 Apr 2011 04:28:11
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