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AstroGeek
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08 Apr 2012, 8:57 pm

ruveyn wrote:
shrox wrote:

The civilization upon the planet's surface is doomed. The planet will be just fine...


Once the sun uses up its hydrogen the planet will not be just fine. The Sun will become much hotter when it starts to fuse helium into carbon, the oceans will boil away. In the end game the sun will become a red giant and most likely the earth will be vaporized.

Mother Sun will end up eating some of her children.

ruveyn

There's a rather cool proposal of using asteroids to transfer angular momentum from Jupiter to Earth with gravitational slingshots to gradually move the Earth outwards and keep it in the habitable zone. It would be an extremely slow process, but we have millions and billions of years.



ruveyn
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10 Apr 2012, 2:28 am

AstroGeek wrote:
There's a rather cool proposal of using asteroids to transfer angular momentum from Jupiter to Earth with gravitational slingshots to gradually move the Earth outwards and keep it in the habitable zone. It would be an extremely slow process, but we have millions and billions of years.


Correct in theory but totally beyond our technological means.

The shelf life of mammalian species on this planet rarely exceeds ten million years. The primates have not been around that long and that includes the most primitive of the primates. We will not last long enough to deploy such technology.

ruveyn



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10 Apr 2012, 7:03 am

I think we should just let it all collapse, then start from scratch once the dust has settled.
The old, wasteful, corrupt 20th century system still has too much momentum to put on the brakes or change direction at this point.
A massive train wreck is inevitable.


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ruveyn
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10 Apr 2012, 8:53 am

pete1061 wrote:
I think we should just let it all collapse, then start from scratch once the dust has settled.
The old, wasteful, corrupt 20th century system still has too much momentum to put on the brakes or change direction at this point.
A massive train wreck is inevitable.


I assume you would prefer the 19th century with a life expectancy of under 60 years, no anti-biotics and a high death rate among children?

ruveyn



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10 Apr 2012, 9:12 am

ruveyn wrote:
pete1061 wrote:
I think we should just let it all collapse, then start from scratch once the dust has settled.
The old, wasteful, corrupt 20th century system still has too much momentum to put on the brakes or change direction at this point.
A massive train wreck is inevitable.


I assume you would prefer the 19th century with a life expectancy of under 60 years, no anti-biotics and a high death rate among children?

ruveyn


its not an either or equation.


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AstroGeek
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10 Apr 2012, 9:26 am

ruveyn wrote:
AstroGeek wrote:
There's a rather cool proposal of using asteroids to transfer angular momentum from Jupiter to Earth with gravitational slingshots to gradually move the Earth outwards and keep it in the habitable zone. It would be an extremely slow process, but we have millions and billions of years.


Correct in theory but totally beyond our technological means.

The shelf life of mammalian species on this planet rarely exceeds ten million years. The primates have not been around that long and that includes the most primitive of the primates. We will not last long enough to deploy such technology.

ruveyn

Probably not, but it's still cool to think about.



ruveyn
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10 Apr 2012, 9:28 am

Oodain wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
pete1061 wrote:
I think we should just let it all collapse, then start from scratch once the dust has settled.
The old, wasteful, corrupt 20th century system still has too much momentum to put on the brakes or change direction at this point.
A massive train wreck is inevitable.


I assume you would prefer the 19th century with a life expectancy of under 60 years, no anti-biotics and a high death rate among children?

ruveyn


its not an either or equation.


Yes it is. Only an industrial economy generates the resources necessary to do the scientific research to produce things like anti-biotics and advanced medical technology. To say nothing of vast quantities of food. There is virtually no starvation in the U.S. If anything we have too much food.

You want all the good stuff industrial capitalism has produced minus all the bad stuff industrial capitalism has produced. There is only one thing wrong with that. The good and bad cannot be cleanly separated. You can't have it both ways. So make your choice.

I prefer modern technology even with all the ugly aspects.

ruveyn



AstroGeek
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10 Apr 2012, 9:29 am

Oodain wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
pete1061 wrote:
I think we should just let it all collapse, then start from scratch once the dust has settled.
The old, wasteful, corrupt 20th century system still has too much momentum to put on the brakes or change direction at this point.
A massive train wreck is inevitable.


I assume you would prefer the 19th century with a life expectancy of under 60 years, no anti-biotics and a high death rate among children?

ruveyn


its not an either or equation.

But by letting our society collapse it would be. We need to make a conscious transition to a more sustainable world, which nonetheless provides a good quality of life. Initiatives with visions like the 2000-watt society are what I have in mind.



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10 Apr 2012, 9:32 am

AstroGeek wrote:
But by letting our society collapse it would be. We need to make a conscious transition to a more sustainable world, which nonetheless provides a good quality of life. Initiatives with visions like the 2000-watt society are what I have in mind.


Dream on.

ruveyn



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10 Apr 2012, 9:35 am

^ Unless we actually try for a more sustainable economy, we'll never get one. We may never get one, anyway, but I prefer to try rather than do nothing.


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10 Apr 2012, 10:52 am

ruveyn wrote:
AstroGeek wrote:
But by letting our society collapse it would be. We need to make a conscious transition to a more sustainable world, which nonetheless provides a good quality of life. Initiatives with visions like the 2000-watt society are what I have in mind.


Dream on.

ruveyn

I have at least 60 years of life ahead of me. I want the Earth to be vaguely inhabitable at least for that time frame. I'm not sure that things will go so well if we keep up as we currently are. At the very least, living will become expensive. At the very least we can improve. Even in North America adopted European standards that would be a huge improvement.

I'll be the first to admit that we can't have 0 impact on the environment, not if we want to live at all comfortably. I am not a deep ecologist or a Voluntary Human Extinction wing nut. However, there is great room for improvement. As you say, America consumes too much food, so we can start by cutting down on that a little. We can design cities to try to make cars unnecessary within the urban center. We can admit that our economy can not grow forever. We can move away from our consumerist, disposable culture. We can make sure that forestry is always practised in a sustainable manner. There is huge room for improvement in energy efficiency. These are just a few things off the top of my head.



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10 Apr 2012, 12:02 pm

AstroGeek wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
AstroGeek wrote:
But by letting our society collapse it would be. We need to make a conscious transition to a more sustainable world, which nonetheless provides a good quality of life. Initiatives with visions like the 2000-watt society are what I have in mind.


Dream on.

ruveyn

I have at least 60 years of life ahead of me. I want the Earth to be vaguely inhabitable at least for that time frame. I'm not sure that things will go so well if we keep up as we currently are. At the very least, living will become expensive. At the very least we can improve. Even in North America adopted European standards that would be a huge improvement.

I'


Technology will do more to bring about your best wishes than all your Luddite anti-industrial impulses. When the spinning machines ccame to France and Holland the weavers busted them up. But the machines won and people got more, better and cheaper clothes than they did when the hand weavers wove their cloth.

ruveyn



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10 Apr 2012, 1:42 pm

ruveyn wrote:
AstroGeek wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
AstroGeek wrote:
But by letting our society collapse it would be. We need to make a conscious transition to a more sustainable world, which nonetheless provides a good quality of life. Initiatives with visions like the 2000-watt society are what I have in mind.


Dream on.

ruveyn

I have at least 60 years of life ahead of me. I want the Earth to be vaguely inhabitable at least for that time frame. I'm not sure that things will go so well if we keep up as we currently are. At the very least, living will become expensive. At the very least we can improve. Even in North America adopted European standards that would be a huge improvement.

I'


Technology will do more to bring about your best wishes than all your Luddite anti-industrial impulses. When the spinning machines ccame to France and Holland the weavers busted them up. But the machines won and people got more, better and cheaper clothes than they did when the hand weavers wove their cloth.

ruveyn

Excuse me, but I am not a Luddite. I believe that it is through technology, used appropriately, that we can maintain a good standard of living while being sustainable.



ruveyn
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10 Apr 2012, 3:43 pm

AstroGeek wrote:
[
Excuse me, but I am not a Luddite. I believe that it is through technology, used appropriately, that we can maintain a good standard of living while being sustainable.


I am glad that you wrote that.

As soon as we pave North America with breeder re-actors and wave front reactors we can stop burning hydrocarbons and have a rich clean life. We CAN beat the filthy oil and coal habit. We can do it with nuclear power generation and perhaps someday with geothermal heat sources.

ruveyn



AstroGeek
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10 Apr 2012, 8:13 pm

ruveyn wrote:
AstroGeek wrote:
[
Excuse me, but I am not a Luddite. I believe that it is through technology, used appropriately, that we can maintain a good standard of living while being sustainable.


I am glad that you wrote that.

As soon as we pave North America with breeder re-actors and wave front reactors we can stop burning hydrocarbons and have a rich clean life. We CAN beat the filthy oil and coal habit. We can do it with nuclear power generation and perhaps someday with geothermal heat sources.

ruveyn

Well, there I'm not so sure that I completely agree with you (hmm, that's never happened before...) Geothermal is great in the few areas that can support it. But honestly, I'm not convinced that fission will ultimately be all that lucrative. I'm open to another generation of reactors being built, but I rather suspect that by the time they need to be replaced we'll be mass producing solar panels to the point that they're cheaper. There's some ideas on being able to print them on just about any surface (including paper, although I'm not sure why you'd want to do that), for example. And hopefully by then we'll finally have decent battery technology or fuel cells to go with that. Anyway, no matter what power source we use, we'll need them in any private vehicles (and we'll need those, at the very least, for emergency response) if we're ever to stop burning our hydrocarbons (which is such a waste, considering all of the useful things that can be done with them).



ruveyn
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10 Apr 2012, 8:42 pm

AstroGeek wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
AstroGeek wrote:
[
Excuse me, but I am not a Luddite. I believe that it is through technology, used appropriately, that we can maintain a good standard of living while being sustainable.


I am glad that you wrote that.

As soon as we pave North America with breeder re-actors and wave front reactors we can stop burning hydrocarbons and have a rich clean life. We CAN beat the filthy oil and coal habit. We can do it with nuclear power generation and perhaps someday with geothermal heat sources.

ruveyn

Well, there I'm not so sure that I completely agree with you (hmm, that's never happened before...) Geothermal is great in the few areas that can support it. But honestly, I'm not convinced that fission will ultimately be all that lucrative. I'm open to another generation of reactors being built, but I rather suspect that by the time they need to be replaced we'll be mass producing solar panels to the point that they're cheaper. There's some ideas on being able to print them on just about any surface (including paper, although I'm not sure why you'd want to do that), for example. And hopefully by then we'll finally have decent battery technology or fuel cells to go with that. Anyway, no matter what power source we use, we'll need them in any private vehicles (and we'll need those, at the very least, for emergency response) if we're ever to stop burning our hydrocarbons (which is such a waste, considering all of the useful things that can be done with them).


Solar power fails in three regards: it lacks density, it is intermittent and does not scale well. Ditto for wind.

If we ever get a cost effective battery that can store solar generated or wind generated electrical energy in large quantities then these source will become economically viable.

ruveyn

ruveyn