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Re: The Limits To Growth



In article <jc6837bs0u.fsf@kbhr.ilo.dec.com> Alastair McKinstry <alastair@kbhr.ilo.dec.com> writes:
 > 
 > dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) writes:
 > 
 > > 
 > > bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de (Bruce Scott TOK ) wrote:
 > > 
 > > >I repeat my comment about energy stocks.  I note that it went unanswered.
 > > 
 > > Energy is not a stock, it's a flow.  Incoming sun is a high fraction
 > > of a horsepower per square yard.  Uranium and geothermal are both
 > > there for the next few billion years.  In due course we shall no doubt
 > > tap the solar wind.  In the meantime, we've got enough gas, oil, coal
 > > and peat to last us a few hundred years at an American scale of
 > > consumption, unlikely though that scale is to become general.
 > >  
 > > Not a problem.
 > 
 > But it is a problem. A major cause of misunderstanding in this debate
 > is whether you do the calculations based on the rest of the world wanting
 > an American (or European) scale of consumption. If you do allow for the
 > rest of the worlds' aspirations, then we don't have hundreds of years
 > worth of gas,oil,coal,etc; we can't build fission reactors fast enough
 > (to western safety standards, at least) and fusion will not be here
 > near fast enough. 
 > 
 > >                             -dlj.
It is not our problem to bring China and India to Western standards of
affluence.  It is they who have to develop the skills and accumulate
the capital.  The skills will take longer than the capital.  What is
important is that the world has the resources so that our consumption
today does not deprive them of the future possibility of equaling or
exceeding us.
-- 
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
During the last years of the Second Millenium, the Earthmen complained
a lot.



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